it all started with a potion gone wrong WIP
by lunarennui
Summary: h/d slash. chapter 20 is either a farce ending, or a pause before i continue; take it as you will.
1. chapter one

disclaimer: you know the drill. these characters and this world isn't mine. it's j.k. rowling's, and her various publishers. don't sue me.  
  
* * *  
  
It all started with a potion gone wrong. So many things do, you know.  
  
I can't even claim any credit for the mistake. Goyle had shown up without his homework, and Ron had done something or other and been paired with Goyle as punishment; we couldn't quite figure out why Ron had gotten in trouble, but as everyone knows, arguing with Snape only makes things worse, so after some hissing from Hermione and a quick elbow to the gut from me, he shut up.  
  
Now, we all know Goyle's not the brightest on the best of days. Paired with Ron, of all people, well…let's just say things were nasty.  
  
There was a muted grumbling and growling coming from them throughout class, although they kept it quiet enough to keep Snape from targeting them. That was all the warning we got.  
  
Suddenly, accompanied by a grunt from Goyle and a shout from Ron, their cauldron's contents exploded with a great *foooom* and sent up a violent fountain towards the ceiling. Everyone had time to turn and cringe (we've been in the class with Neville too long to not acquire SOME defensive instincts) before we were all drenched with the raining remnants of Ron and Goyle's failed potion.  
  
Afterward no one was quite able to find out what exactly they'd done wrong. Snape had been at his desk, and in fact was the only person in the room untouched by the potion. He made the best guess he could and treated the class as a whole; all of our mixtures were contaminated by Ron/Goyle's, so since it was far too late to start again, everyone's work was for nothing; we spent the rest of the class waiting in line to get Snape's antidote. Some people broke out in bright violet blisters, some grew tentacles like a fringed collar round their neck, some acted *very* bizarrely, some had no reaction at all. After the antidote was administered all of these symptoms disappeared, and everyone was reassured.  
  
For a few days, anyway.  
  
The first indications were easy to ignore— for teenagers to act strangely isn't all that unusual, you know. Hormones and adolescence and all that. Ron was far more irritable than usual and spent hours scowling into the fire, Hermione got— strange— and disappeared into her dormitory during all her free time. Lavender and Parvati got into a huge fight, which ended up with Lavender spending all her time meditating underneath the trapdoor to Professor Trelawney's classroom, and Parvati writing reams of bad poetry in the Great Hall. Seamus and Dean refused to leave the commonroom under any circumstances, immersed in discussions about the ability of frogs to change gender and the accomplishments of feminine rights organisations in Kazakhstan. Neville just giggled randomly and took to braiding horsehair. I'm afraid to ask where he got so much of it.  
  
I didn't feel anything, myself, and actually found it rather liberating to be able to practise my flying techniques and hit the library by myself— Ron will never leave me alone for the one and 'Mione the other, and it was quite a pleasant change to realise that I was the only one in my own vicinity for a bit. After the first few days, though, it became a little alarming, especially considering that everyone who'd been splashed with the potion in Gryffindor—except me—was affected. This naturally led to the observation of the 6th year Slytherins.  
  
I know it doesn't sound possible, but their behaviour was more disturbing and unusual than they had been before; more disturbing and unusual than all the Gryffindors by far. For example, Pansy Parkinson was creating a gallery of paintings of Muggle pop music stars; all of them were painted in table condiments. She couldn't be convinced to paint anything else at all, let alone to consider that perhaps actual *paints* might be a good idea…and there's only so much you can do with ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, and jams…  
  
The only person I could observe behaving normally besides myself, Gryffindor OR Slytherin, was Malfoy.  
  
Now, I resist comparison to Malfoy at all times, but this forced some unpleasant considerations. He and I were the only ones acting normally, from what I could see of the Slytherins in classes and during mealtimes.  
  
A trip to see Snape was necessary. 


	2. chapter two

Snape was willing to see me much earlier and more willingly than I had expected, possibly because our next Potions class had turned into chaos so quickly that he didn't dare let the class near any ingredients.  Still, he was almost as nasty as usual when I finally did get to talk to him after class, a week after the incident.  "And what did you have to _discuss_, Potter?   I trust you're not wasting my time with questions you could answer yourself out of your textbook."  He looked a bit harried, and didn't bother to put his usual amount of venom into his tone.  I was heartened.

"Sir, I think that the antidote you gave us all last week didn't quite get rid of the effects of that potion."  I knew I could have put this more diplomatically, but talking to Snape always made my stomach burn and my brain forget whatever diplomacy I'd ever learned;  I felt lucky to remember salient points when I talked to him at all.

"And what makes you think so, Potter?  Have you become a Potions genius while I wasn't watching?  If it could be treated, it was.  Is that all?  If so, get out of my office."  I picked up the faintest touch of uncertainty in the second half of what he was saying;  it gave me the courage to stay despite his dismissal.

"Sir, I've noticed very unusual behaviours in both my housemates and my Slytherin yearmates.  Are you sure this is nothing to do with the potion we were splashed with last week?  It's the only class both years share where anything memorable happened…'  I ran out of things to say;  I know I'm not the most articulate.  But I'm the Boy Who Lived, dammit.  I don't need to be articulate most times.

Snape frowned for a moment, then said, "Potter, I told you, if it _could_ be treated, it _was_ treated.  There's nothing more that can be done.  Unless some freakish emergency comes up, forget about it and wait for the effects to pass."  He actually didn't seem to be blowing me off entirely as he usually did, so I took his word for it and left.

By next Tuesday, most of the effects _had_ passed.  Everyone slipped back into normal behaviours, and answered queries about their earlier behaviour with a blush and evasion.  I didn't mind, as long as they were purged of the potion's effects.  But even Hermione showed no interest in looking up the possibilities of what we'd all been sprayed with, or why Malfoy and I had shown no side effects when everyone else had.  

Things passed back into normal;  we all went to class, performed adequately, left, no one displaying bizarre behaviours or growths.  Everything seemed to be back to normal.

Until the morning I woke up and couldn't speak.

I could move, to a limited extent, which really meant I could jerk and stumble about just enough to seriously hurt myself;  Ron and Hermione half-carried me to the hospital wing, where Crabbe and Goyle were already dragging a similarly-affected Malfoy to the attentions of Madam Pomfrey.

Obviously I couldn't tell her what was going, or about the potion we'd been exposed to, and neither could Malfoy.  We couldn't even keep from making grunts, or gargling sounds, or any of those idiotic and unhygienic sounds most people make when they're choking (or acting like they're choking).   She made us both as comfortable as she could and hurried off to her office, immediately immersing herself in huge textbook tomes, presumably trying to figure out what was wrong with us.

After a bit, and it really doesn't take very long before one gets tired of making truly disgusting sounds and twitching violently with no real beneficial effect, we both gave up on communication or real functional movement.  I personally viewed this as a kind of defeat, and was both irritated and somewhat panicked about the situation;  yes, so the others had apparently recovered, but none of them had stopped speaking and moving properly!  What if this didn't go away?

_:Oh shut up, Potter.:_

Now, that didn't feel in any way like an internal voice, and (understandably I think) I was more inclined to hope that it was an _external_ voice than a sign of incurable madness.  I thought back at it as hard as I could, _:Don't tell me to shut up.  Why don't YOU say something worthwhile then?:_

There was silence for a long while.  

_:I don't have to answer to you, Potter.:_

If I could turn my head, I would have;  I'd have liked to see what Malfoy was doing, or rather whether there was any bit of the dismay I was feeling written on his face, but I'd learned my lesson at this point about trying to move.  I held still and fumed to myself.

_:Tell me this is all some sort of delusion.  You're not real.  I'm just confused.  Just confused, that's all.  I'm imagining things.  Stupid damned potion has me imagining that Malfoy and I can hear each other's thoughts.:_

There was an even longer silence.

_:Either I'M imagining this, or we're not imagining any of this.  I can't believe this.  Of all the people I could be stuck with, I've got to have YOU in my head?  Gods, just let me die.:_

_:The feeling is mutual,:  _I snarled.  _:Now just shut up for a while.  I don't want to have to deal with you.  It's bad enough I can't move properly anyway.:_

_:I wasn't the one babbling, Potter— you interrupted MY pleasant and singular thoughts.  YOU shut up.:_

The longest silence yet.

_:Oh, bugger.:_

_:I heard that.:_

_:Shut up, you bug-sucking arselicker—:_

The insults flew for the next few hours.


	3. chapter three

Afterwards, both of us lay exhausted in the hospital beds, trying not to think anything at all with every bit of energy we had left.

Finally— _:Truce, Malfoy?  I...can't keep this up much longer.  At all.:_

A pause, then— _:Truce, Potter.  Though I'll never admit it to anyone else.:_

_:Fair enough.  So...we're stuck in each other's head.  And we're wrung out.  What can we do?:  _

Both of us were silent for a bit.

_:...Potter, if you concentrate very, very hard, do you think you can write?:_

_:...I'm not sure.  Maybe.  I know I can keep from gargling and twitching, but I can't swear to writing.:  _

_:If I got Pomfrey to bring you paper and a quill, do you think you'd be able to convey our situation to her?:_

For far from the first time since the beginning of this hospital stay I wished desperately that I could look at Malfoy and judge his honesty.  But that wasn't possible.  And when in doubt, be a Gryffindor.  Which meant trusting him to be honourable.

_:I think so...probably.  Again, I  can't swear to it, but I'd do the best I could.  You really think you could get her to bring me a parchment and a quill?:_

_:...Probably...that depends.  I make no promises.  Hold on.  And if you breathe a word of this I'll kill you.:_

I tried not to hold my breath.

Malfoy started to make strangled, gurgling noises and thrash about a bit.  I refrained from laughing hysterically at them only because I couldn't control my voice enough to laugh and because I thought...possibly...Malfoy was executing the plan.  It was just as well I did nothing, for Madam Pomfrey hurried to Malfoy's side, ignoring me since I wasn't doing anything.

I found I was able to get a vague idea of what was going on with Malfoy just by focusing on *Malfoy's* being instead of mine;  this was vaguely disturbing to both of us, but not enough to disrupt Malfoy's actions.

Malfoy was making vague writing motions with his hands, then pointing at me.  Madam Pomfrey frowned, didn't seem to _quite _be getting it, but hurried off and returned immediately with a paper and quill.  She was irritated when Malfoy tried to wave her toward me, saying indignantly, 'Well, this is what you wanted, isn't it?  You students and your pranks—' before, with a roll of her eyes, she brought the paper and quill to my bed.  'Do you want this, then, or has he been wasting my time?'  I hoped most fervently that I'd be able to write as I'd said.

I took the quill in one hand, and she propped the paper on the bed before me.  Fortunately the quill was one of the expensive self-inking sorts;  an open inkpot would have been asking for far too much trouble.  I concentrated as hard as I could and brought the quill tip to the paper.  In a sprawling, jerky hand I managed to scrawl:

potion in snapes class last friday went wrong

we cant move right, and we hear each others thoughts

It looked more like a child's first attempt at printing than anything truly legible, and by the end of it I was shaking with exhaustion, but Madam Pomfrey frowned over the paper and finally nodded firmly.  'All right, boys, I'll contact Professor Snape immediately.  We'll get you worked out somehow.  In the meantime hold tight, will you?  Don't strain yourselves, especially you, Potter;  I may need you to write a bit more.'  And she was gone, taking the quill with her.  It was just as well, I reflected, otherwise I might have made odd-shaped blots on the blanket.

_:Well done, Malfoy.  If I'd gotten her here, I'd have been too fagged to write anything.:_

_:I know.  I was.  That's why I did it, and sent her to you.  Like it or not, we're stuck working together until this damned potion wears off, or they counteract it.:_

_:Oh please let Snape be able to counteract it.  I hate this.  No offence, but not being able to move or speak is really horrid.:_

_:Not to mention being stuck listening to my thoughts, and likewise?  Don't worry, the feeling's mutual, Potter.:_

_:To be honest, it could be worse...I could be stuck in Snape's head, or one of the girls'.:_

_:...Good point.  I think I'd kill myself if I had to do this with, say, that Mudblood Granger girl, or Pansy.:_

_:Stop calling her a fucking Mudblood, Malfoy, or I swear on my father's grave I'll smash your face in when we're free of this gods damned potion.  She's a better witch than anyone else I know, and so fucking what if her parents are Muggles?  It's not like she can help that, damn you.  She's a better, truer friend than you'll ever deserve.:  _...I wound down a bit.  _:So just...shut up about her, will you?  If I were stuck like this with her, we'd probably have been fixed by now.:_

...Malfoy was quiet for a long minute.

_:You really don't care about Muggle blood, do you, Potter?:_

_:No.  I don't.  It doesn't MATTER.  Muggles are people too, Malfoy.  They just can't do magic.  So they figure out other ways to do things.  They're not fucking inferior.  Most wizards can't use a gods damned telephone.:  _

_:...As if we'd want to?:_

_:It's a hell of a lot quicker and more personal than owl post, Malfoy.  Muggle technology has its place.:  _

_:...But they can't do so much that we CAN.  So what if they can do a few things more easily than we can?  And I do mean a few.:_

_:For one thing, Malfoy, wizarding folk would have died out entirely without Muggle-borns, or ended up with five eyes or something.  Too inbred.  The population was too damned small.  And yes, Muggle genetics tells me that.  Muggles understand a LOT of things we don't entirely.:  _

_:Right.:_

_:They DO.  And for another, Muggle technology involves a lot of people working together to reach a goal.  They're working together in a way wizards never have.  And if we piss them off enough, they'll use that to come after us.  And even if they couldn't wipe us out, they could do some serious damage if they decided to.:_

_:...Riiiiiiiiiight.:_

_:You're a blind fool, Malfoy.  I shouldn't have wasted my time on you.:_

_:...You really believe this nonsense, Potter?  These fairy tales?:_

_:It's the TRUTH, Malfoy.:_

_:Then show me.  Prove it.  PROVE to me that they've got some kind of worth.:_

I clenched my teeth.  Why should I bother?  Why should I try to explain this to Draco Malfoy, of all people?  Why should I try so hard?

...Because it's _right_.

I opened my mind to Malfoy as wide as I could, wordlessly showing him all of my Muggle childhood, all of the things the Muggles could do when they chose to, all of the things they could be, all of the things they were already and all of the things that they could BE when they needed to;  I showed him every goodness, every potential I knew of and could see *becoming* in Muggles, and admitted their flaws easily;  I pointed out the similarities between the two cultures, seeing problems in both.  I showed Malfoy my sense of obligation to Muggles, that I could do something they couldn't, at least in the same way, or as easily, and that that meant to me that I needed to protect them, to use this thing they couldn't to keep them from harm, at the very least to keep them from abuse, simply because I could and they couldn't.  

_:...Even those bloody Dursleys you grew up with...?:_

:Even them.:

Malfoy had nothing to say for a very long time.

_:But...why, Potter?  Why do you feel sorry for them?  Why d'you think you have to waste your life protecting them?  What's the point?:_

:It's because they CAN'T and we CAN, Malfoy;  they're almost like children, nearly defenceless, but they're not LESS than we are...they just aren't as CAPABLE as we are.  Do we hesitate to protect children?  Never.  Neither do we hesitate to protect endangered species.  And they're not animals, they're people;  they're just like...poor people, or people who simply can't do a sort of thing we can.  We HAVE to take care of them, or at least do them no harm, because they ARE like children;  they can't fight us as equals.  They're PEOPLE, dammit.  Just a different sort of people.  You don't hurt people.  They've got as much right to exist as we do.  They feel, and think, just like we do.  THAT'S what's important.  Hurting things that are weaker than you isn't honourable or fun;  it's disgusting.:

Malfoy was silent again.  I took advantage of it.

_:And I'd like to take this opportunity to point out to you that basing superiority on birth or race or how much money your family has is really, REALLY stupid.  Why be arrogant about such things?  It's not like you personally had anything to do with any of it.  You can't claim any credit for where you are.  Accident of fate, that's all.  If that's all you have to be proud of, that's not saying very much for you, is it?  Except that you're insecure enough to NEED to know you're better than everyone else.  But what's important is what you make of yourself, not what you got to start out with.:_

:I—:

I felt a little bad, lecturing a captive audience, but I also knew I'd probably never get another chance like this to make Malfoy really listen to me.  I settled back into the pillows (I found I'd tensed up a lot while expounding), quietly satisfied with myself, and let Malfoy think things over.   I'd just challenged his whole world-view, and you don't change paradigms easily.

Finally he 'spoke'. 

_:Maybe you're right, Potter.  No one's ever...put it like that before.  I'm not saying I like you for saying it, mind, and I'm a bit upset, but...maybe you're right.:_

:There's nothing wrong with being proud of what and who you are, Malfoy.  Don't get me wrong.  You're an excellent Seeker, you're brilliant, you've got tons of things to be proud of that you really can claim.  Nothing wrong with being proud that you're beautiful, but there's no need to despise the plain-faced just because they got a worse deal than you.:

I almost didn't catch what I'd 'said'.  Then I bit my lip in irritation.  And spared a bit of myself to observe that I COULD bite my lip—without biting through it—again.

_:Beautiful, Potter.:  _He made what could be best described as a mental laugh which had nothing of real amusement in it.  _:You think I'm beautiful, do you?  Or was that just an example?:_

_:Well, both, really,:_ I admitted.  I knew I was blushing and was intensely grateful that there wasn't anyone around who could see.  What a fucking mess.  Gods damn my subconscious.  Or my not-so-subconscious, actually.  It was true, I'd admired Malfoy's fragile loveliness since I'd first seen him, but oh GODS I'd never wanted to tell him that.  And now I was stuck in a conversation neither of us could walk away from.  I waited for him to start the battle.

I didn't get what I expected.

_:I'm—er—flattered, I guess.  I didn't know you went that way, Potter.:_

_:...I don't, really, I just...well, someone'd have to be blind not to notice you, wouldn't they?:  _Oh gods, I felt such the idiot.

< p class=MsoBodyText>_:Now I'm MORE flattered.  I think I may be blushing.:_

_:You're not the only one...:_

Malfoy laughed.  Actually laughed;  I heard it with my ears, not my mind.  

_:You just—!:  _I leapt at the distraction.

_:Yes, I did, didn't I?  Interesting.  This potion may wear off  yet.  Just when I was starting to like you, too.:_

I was just about to reply to that with incredulity when Madam Pomfrey entered the room, Snape in tow.   He didn't look like he was feeling helpful.

"Well, well...you two didn't avoid the effects after all, did you.  I _had_ been wondering why you both managed to miss out on the whole thing.  Unfortunately, I don't believe there's anything that can be done for you;  you'll have to wait it out, like everyone else."  Snape acted regretful, but I sensed a bit of satisfaction under his tone.  Damn him.  

Malfoy managed to wave one hand sharply, clearly showing (at least, it was clear to me) our dismay and protest.  Surely he could at least TRY something!  There had to be _something_. 

But Snape just smiled thinly.  "There's no help for it, boys;  we don't know exactly what went wrong with the potion, so we can't risk meddling with it.  Everyone else seems to have gotten through the effects and returned to normal, and I've no doubt you will as well.  Eventually."  He turned to Madam Pomfrey.  "Was that all then?  I have more important things to do than reassure two students, you know."  I hated him more than ever;  I could almost see the expression on his face, just by hearing his tone of voice as he swept out of the room without waiting for an answer.  What an ass!  

_:You're right there, Potter, although I must admit it's kind of fun to watch when you're not on the receiving end of his attitude.:_

I was so angry that I didn't notice that Malfoy'd been answering my _unfocussed_ thoughts.  _:DAMN that man!  He's fucking ENJOYING this!  How can he not even TRY to help?  Gods DAMN him!:_

_:Settle down, Potter.  There's nothing to be done for it.  It's not like we can argue with him, not that arguing with him would really do anything for us anyway.  You heard him;  we'll have to sit this out.  And I'm regaining control of my body, a bit, slowly;  I think it WILL pass.  Relax.:_

_:But...:_  I finally made myself admit the fear that had been lurking in the back of my head ever since this situation had come up.  _:...what if it doesn't go away?:_

_:It has to.:  _

I'd have been a lot more reassured by the firmness of this statement if I couldn't sense his fear behind it.  


	4. chapter four

By the next morning, both of us were able to move and walk ALMOST normally.  We sounded like fools when we tried to speak, slurring and stumbling across our words and ending up almost unintelligible, but we could at least do THAT and not just gargle.  But the mental link hadn't faded at all.  

You never really notice how nice it is to have at least your own HEAD private from everyone until you lose the capability. 

Malfoy and I made it through the evening and night, obviously, though by the time we went to sleep we were both fairly snappish and then our dreams were curiously tangled.  It's very strange to be _two_ in a dream, and even more so to be both yourself and someone else in two _different_ dreams at the same time.  Very...confusing.  To say the least.

We sniggered through trying to get dressed and going to the restroom, sometimes laughing at ourselves, sometimes laughing at the other, sometimes laughing at the whole damned situation.  It was actually sort of fun, though still incredibly frustrating.

But neither of us dared to mention to the other the fear that wound through both our minds—what if this telepathy thing _didn't go away_?

Madam Pomfrey didn't seem to have any serious concerns along those lines;  she was immensely pleased that we were regaining control of our bodies, and expected that we would continue to improve.  If we did,  she'd let us go back to our dormitories that evening instead of staying another night in the Hospital Ward.   That hope was a great relief;  I hate sleeping in strange beds, and I missed the hangings 'round my bed in the dorm room.  Really, it all came down to PRIVACY!  And here I had none.  Malfoy was equally relieved.  I suspected that he was alone far more than I'd imagined;  I got the feeling that he really didn't _like_ being around any of the other Slytherins, or anyone else, actually.  I suspected that his alliance with Crabbe and Goyle was more because the roles were a family tradition than because he truly liked their company.  And perhaps a bit practical, as well, if he was going to go about being as much of an ass as he had been with his small frame.  The frail have two options:  avoid confrontation whenever possible, or acquire protectors.  There was no question Malfoy'd be in for trouble if it ever came to a real physical fight.  He was just too fragile and small.

I found it difficult, after the whole day and night of being locked into thinking at each other, to keep calling him Malfoy.  _Draco_ kept sliding into my thoughts, unasked for and unwanted.   I fought to keep from revealing this change to him.

Although the link hadn't truly faded overnight like the physical effects had, by the next morning we'd both gained a bit of isolation in our skulls;  unless I was thinking something very strongly, or was completely immersed in what I was doing, I could keep most of what I thought to myself unless I _meant_ him to hear, and likewise.  Mostly what we conveyed mentally was intentional.  I thanked all the gods that may be for this.   

For some reason it didn't occur to us to stop conversing mentally and switch to real speech, even halfway through the day when we were both intelligible.  Speaking mind-to-mind seemed far easier and more natural than bothering to speak out loud by this point.  And we'd achieved a level of camaraderie that I'd never imagined possible.  We spent most of the day laughing together, in fact.  It was...nice.  Fun.  Despite the situation.

Finally that evening Madam Pomfrey agreed to let us go back to our respective commonrooms, though we weren't entirely steady on our feet and our speech was still a bit slurred.  We were to report back to her if we experienced any regression at all.  I for one fervently agreed that if I felt myself regressing, I'd be in the Hospital Wing immediately, making as much noise about it as possible.  Moving and speaking was infinitely precious to me now that I'd lost it for a bit.  

We stumbled through the corridors, occasionally catching our balance by leaning on the walls or each other.  I noticed that I didn't actually _mind_ touching and being touched by Draco.  It was disconcerting.  I wasn't sure whether it was because we'd reached a tenuous friendship, or some lingering effect of the potion.  I carefully did NOT think about it too loudly;  I'd made enough of a fool of myself yesterday.

At last we reached the Entrance Hall.  We'd missed dinner completely, and everyone had left for their dormitories long before.  Our shuffling and irregular footsteps echoed emptily in the vast stone chambers.  

"Well,  here we are, I suppose," I said, feeling like a stupid prat.  

"Er...yes, so we are," Draco agreed.

We stared at our feet for a bit.

"So—"

"Well—"

We stopped again.

_:I guess I'll see you tomorrow?:  _I finally asked, lamely.

_:Yes, I'd imagine so.:_

_:I'll talk to you tomorrow, then,: _I said.

_:Sure.  Tomorrow.:  _He didn't look at me as he turned away toward the Slytherin dormitories;  I know, because I was watching.

I turned towards the corridor that would lead me to the Gryffindor tower, feeling strangely lonely.  I found myself glancing behind myself often.  I'd gotten out of sight of the Entrance Hall before I heard him— 

_:Have a good evening, Potter.:_

Something inside me leapt with joy.  _:You too, Malfoy.:_


	5. chapter five

The reunion with the Gryffindors was...odd.  It was wonderful to see Ron and Hermione again, of course, but I didn't enjoy the resultant party in the commonroom nearly as much as I ought to;  something seemed missing, casting a shadow over the whole thing.  I dealt with it for a couple of hours, becoming increasingly lonely and down despite the joyous chaos around me.  Ron and Hermione noticed;  Ron seemed to chalk it up to the lingering effects of the potion, but I could tell Hermione was really concerned.  I'd not told any of them about the mind-thing with Malfoy, other than that he'd been similarly effected.  Ron had, predictably, gloated;  Hermione had just looked thoughtful.  

Finally I couldn't take it anymore;  I reached out to that area of my awareness that was Draco.

_:Malfoy?:_

He responded almost too quickly, like he'd been waiting.

_:Yes, Potter?:_

I didn't really have anything to say...I felt like a moron.  _:Nothing, really, just wanted to check and see if the link was still active.:_

_:I'd say so.  ...Things going alright over there?: _He felt like he was glad to re-open the channel between us.  I wondered briefly whether he'd been as lonely without it as I had, these last couple of hours.  I didn't allow myself to be alarmed by this thought just then.

_:...Sure, well enough.  I suppose.:_

_:You seem...well, morose.  You sure things are okay, Potter?:_

I'd not expected him to be able to sense that.  I fumbled for a few moments, then said, _:Just feeling a bit...low.  I guess.  It's probably just the damned potion.:_

He seemed to hesitate, then replied, _:Yeah, probably.  ...I'm...feeling a bit down myself.  It must be the after-effects.:_

_:Yeah, it must be.:_

Neither of us said anything for several seconds.

_:Well, then, I'll just go back to the party, shall I?:  _I felt awkward and uncomfortable;  I was terrified that he'd pick up on how empty not having him around had left me.  I hated to think of myself as vulnerable like that.  It had to be the potion.  

_:Yes, I suppose...have fun.: _He sounded as reluctant to close off the channel as I felt.  I raked my mind for a way to suggest we keep in touch without sounding overeager.

_:Let me know if anything really interesting happens over there, will you?  I could use a good laugh, or even just a distraction.:  _I didn't think that sounded too bad.  My dignity was intact.

_:Sure.  You do the same, alright?  Things are usually pretty dull here, actually.:  _He meant that, I could tell.

_:Sure.  Things are ALWAYS crazy here.:  _Almost without meaning to, I opened my eyes and ears to him and showed him what going on around me.  _:See?:_  

_:Dear gods.  Nothing like that ever happens here.:  _I felt myself drawn into his awareness again, and saw through his eyes;  the Slytherin commonroom was much as I'd seen the one time I'd ever been in there, everyone huddled around the fireplace and occasionally murmuring to each other, like no one trusted anyone else at all, like they were all keeping as much as they could to themselves in case it ended up being useful.  It was about as far from the usual Gryffindor chaos as I could imagine.  If I had to live in an atmosphere like that, I'd probably be in a bad mood all the time too.  _:I resent that!  I'm not always in a bad mood.:  _I'd forgotten to keep my thoughts hidden!  I knew he felt my embarrassment.

_:Er...sorry, Malfoy.  It DOES seem like you are, sometimes.:  _I still felt like an ass.

:Well, I'm not.: 

_:Then stop acting like it!:  _And I made myself laugh.  I knew I'd done it both mentally and physically when Hermione turned and looked at me concernedly.  

It was worth it, though, because Draco returned hotly, _:Fine!  But I think the problem's just that you're oversensitive, Harry!:_

_:...Er...Harry, is it now?:  _I responded.  

_:Sorry, talking to someone mind-to-mind for two days encourages a bit of familiarity in me.: _  He sounded disgusted with himself.

_:'S okay...DRACO.: _ I couldn't help putting a bit of bite into it.

_:Fine then, HARRY.  —Did that first-year just LICK Longbottom's toad?!?:_

_:She did!  And I've no idea why!  Let me ask.:_  And, what with one thing and another, we forgot to continue our burgeoning argument.

* * * 

_Our dreams mingled again that night;  we found ourselves transferring unexpectedly between each other's awareness throughout the dreams, which were chaotic and tended to change subject and setting often and without warning, as one or the other of us took over with a forceful thought.  We found ourselves doing things we'd never do within the dreams, behaving in ways we never would even in dreams, going places and confronting things we'd never even imagined.  Through it all, despite the confusion and constant displacement, we were unquestionably WE.  This didn't seem alarming until we woke up._

* * *


	6. chapter six

mmm harry potter slash. 

  
The following morning was Friday again.  Before either of us were really ready it was time for double Potions again.  Ron looked extremely offended when I joined Draco of my own will, but Hermione just seemed troubled and told Ron to shut up.  Crabbe and Goyle ended up paired together, and I couldn't help wondering if they'd be able to get through the class without some sort of chaos—hopefully not as extreme as we'd seen two weeks ago.

_:Don't worry.  They're not quite as stupid as they seem, truly.:_   I'd not meant to be transmitting my thoughts, but underneath the dismay some part of me was GLAD to hear Draco;  I found that I'd really missed him!  Oh gods, so alarming.  NOT a good idea, to come to like an enemy.  ...And yet I had missed him, and was glad to hear him again...glad to be close to him...  I tried not to think about that right now.

_:You're sure?  They've always seemed pretty damned idiotic to me.:_   I thanked all the gods I could think of that he couldn't determine quite why I was shaking, though I knew he saw me doing it and could sense at least foggily my mental disruption as I chopped dried caterpillars. 

_:Yeah, they're stupid, alright, but they won't cause any horrible catastrophe as long as they're not paired with someone they don't like.  Then they lose any sort of intelligence they ever had and just become grunting jerks. —You're okay, aren't you, Potter?  Truly, you don't have to worry about them splashing us with  some other mismatched concoction, I swear.  They're lucky to get their potion to do ANYTHING, let alone do something sort of near what it was supposed to do.:  _Draco didn't budge from his task of mixing 18 drops of squid ink with an exact half-handful of crushed cockatrice eggshell.   

Our potion was progressing perfectly;  I suppose it didn't hurt that we each knew what the other was doing at every moment, so we could have the next ingredient ready precisely when it was needed.  I could feel Hermione and Ron's eyes on my back, but I ignored them;  it seemed enough at this moment that I was near Draco again, and it felt right enough that I didn't question it.  Time enough for that later.

_:I'll take your word for it...though I'm really twitchy about mismade potions, understandably, I think.: _ I shredded my square of Pronghorn Antelope horn carefully as we 'talked'.  It smelled odd, unpleasant actually, and Draco and I both wrinkled our noses as I dealt with the greasy thing—it had rough and prickly hairs poking up from it as well, and was just thoroughly nasty.

_ :I'm SO glad you took that bit.: _ He made a face into the cauldron, the contents of which were glowing a soft lavender.  _:I know I'd never be able to handle that thing without retching.:_

_:Maybe you should hop into my head then,:  _I said.  _:Come smell and feel it through me, and if you get sick, it won't be you that has to deal with it.:  _I grinned at him.  _:Surely I shouldn't have to be the only one to experience this.:  _

_:I get enough of an idea through you, thank you,:_  he said.  _:I CAN smell it from here, you know, and I DO get a feel for what you're feeling;  I'd rather not deal with that foul thing any more personally than I've already had to, thank you very much.:_  I glanced at his slender, pale hands and silently agreed that he needn't touch anything like this with them;  they were lovely hands, really, long fingered and slim, and oughtn't to be made to handle anything oily and harsh like this chunk of hairy horn in my hands, which was slowly shredding away with a foul smell.

 _:You're rhapsodising again, Harry.:_  I flushed, cursing myself for letting things slip yet again, but when I glanced up at him I saw he was grinning.

"Er—sorry."  Somehow normal speech seemed very impersonal now, and that was reassuring.

But he didn't reply out loud, as I'd half-hoped. _:Truly, I don't mind;  I was just giving you a hard time.  Relax, will you?:_  He winked at me, and I couldn't help but smile back at him.  

 _:Still, it's sort of—embarrassing, you know?  And I wasn't even meaning you to hear that bit.:   _

_:I know.  You leak a lot more than I do.  Perhaps because you're not as used to concealing yourself as I am, I think.  And—don't be embarrassed.  To be honest, it's—one of the nicest compliments I've ever gotten.:_  Now HE was blushing;  I could feel it almost as strongly as if it were me.

 _:Subject change, shall we?  I think I'm done with this thing.:_  We returned to the potion with relief.

The class was over before I knew it.  Malfoy and I parted company at the door, somewhat reluctantly.  "Later, then," I said as he walked away, and he turned back for a moment with a smile and a wave.  

Hermione had had enough.  She seized me by the arm as I reached the hallway and towed me straight to the dormitory.  Ron couldn't seem to find anything to say;  he just shook his head and snorted a lot.  I was sorely tempted to laugh at him, but I didn't want to take any chances with Hermione when she was like this, so I held my tongue.

We climbed through the portrait hole and Hermione shoved me into a chair.  She pulled up another one and sat facing me while Ron paced behind her.  "Alright, Harry.  What's going on?  You keep getting distant, you go off and join Malfoy during Potions of your own will, and though I think you exchanged a whole five words with him during the entire class, you both act as if you're carrying on a conversation.  What aren't you telling us?"  Thank the gods, she didn't sound angry, just very serious.

"Nothing's really going on, 'Mione.  There were just some...other effects...of the potion."  I suddenly found my feet very interesting.  "I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to worry."

"Too late for that," she said dryly.  "What other effects, exactly?"

Draco was suddenly there in my head with me.  _:Are you going to tell her?:_

:I think I ought to.  She IS one of my best friends, you know.  I hate keeping secrets, and I really hadn't meant this to be a SECRET exactly, I just didn't know how to talk about it.:  I paused.  _:Do you mind?:_

_ :No—:_

Hermione reached out and grabbed my knee.  "Harry, you're doing it again.  _Tell me what is going on_."

"Er—sorry.  One sec.  Please."   

_:What was that?:_

:I was saying, I think it's a good idea to let her know.  She seems awfully concerned.:

_:Unusual of you to care how a Mudblood feels,: _I couldn't help responding.

:I don't think this is the time to have this conversation, Harry.  Just get on with it.:

:Fine.:

"Sorry, 'Mione."  She was really upset now, I could tell.  I felt like a total ass.  "When I got to the hospital wing, Malfoy was there too.  And, er, well, we couldn't talk or anything, but we could...hear each other's thoughts."

_:So eloquent, Harry.  Ever thought of becoming an orator?:  _

:SHUT UP.  I'm doing the best I can here.:

Hermione's eyebrows seemed to be trying to migrate to her scalp.  "You could hear each other's thoughts."

"Well, yeah.  Actually, we couldn't NOT hear each other's thoughts.  And, um, we still can."

"You still can hear each other's thoughts."

"...Yeah."

Ron burst out laughing.  

"Pull the other one, Harry.  Come on, couldn't you think of a better excuse for acting weird?  You and Malfoy hearing each other's thoughts!  Oh right."  He said a few more things, but they were unintelligible since he was laughing so hard that he actually fell down.

"Harry.  Tell me you're joking.  Please."  Now I felt really bad for this whole thing.  I'd never seen Hermione look so serious, and that's saying something, I tell you.  She's a master of serious looks.

"I'm sorry, Hermione.  I wish I could.  But I'm not joking.  Malfoy and I seem to have gotten some sort of...telepathic link or something."  Ron was dragging himself off the floor into a chair, still snickering but starting to slow down a bit.  

"Did you tell Madam Pomfrey?  Or talk to Professor Snape?"  She seemed to be softening a bit;  I felt like I could breathe again.

"Yes, we told them both, and they said they couldn't do anything about it and we'd have to wait for the potion's effects to wear off.  And mostly they have, really.  Except for...this bit."  It occurred to me that other than that one scribbled message, we hadn't talked to Snape or Madam Pomfrey about it.  Somehow it hadn't seemed important after a while,  and now, suddenly, I knew I didn't want it to go away.  Scary.  Very scary.

I waited for Draco to say something, but all I got was silence from him.  Either he hadn't picked up on that thought, or he was waiting till I was done talking to Hermione and Ron to discuss it.  Very polite, I thought.

_:I can be when it suits me, you know.:_

So much for him not hearing me.

"Maybe you should talk to Professor Dumbledore, Harry."  I'd almost forgotten about Hermione for a moment;  my attention snapped back to her.  

"I don't know...it'll probably just go away on its own, that's what Snape said anyway."  

Ron burst into the conversation.  "You mean to say you're stuck with stinking Malfoy in your head?  And you're not trying to do something about it?!?  You have gone mad, Harry!  You've got to get rid of that slimy ferret-boy as soon as you can!  Today!  Now!"  He'd forgotten to laugh now, unfortunately, and seemed about to start pacing again.  Sigh.

_:Nice to know I'm loved.:_

:You've earned this from him, you know.:

I didn't expect a response, but one whispered into my mind anyway.  _:...I know.:_

"He's not that bad, Ron, really."  _:What happened to being beautiful and brilliant?!?:   :Shut up, I've got to start somewhere.:_  "We've done a lot of talking—well really, we sort of had to, didn't we?—and once you get to know him, he's a...good...friend."  

Ron just stared at me, aghast.  Hermione looked thoughtful.

"Can you hear him now, Harry?"

"—Yes, why?" 

"Tell him from me that I still think he's a bloody bastard, but I'm willing to consider the possibility that he's not an entire loss since he's obviously won you over."

"He can hear you, 'Mione, I don't have to _tell_ him anything if he's paying attention.  And he is."  I winced a little;  to be honest, I was a bit afraid to hear Draco's response, and I most definitely did not want to be in the middle of this discussion.  But he surprised me yet again.

_:Tell her thank you for the second chance.  I'd apologise to her, but I think I ought to do that in person.:_

:You're kidding.:

:You know I can't lie to you convincingly like this.  I HAVE been a bastard.  And...I've done a lot of thinking about things.  I'd like to give not being a bastard a shot, I think.  At least try it out, see how it fits me.  I can always go back to my normal state of bastardhood if it doesn't work out.:

I laughed;  Hermione raised just one eyebrow this time.  "He says to tell you thank you for the second chance.  And he's going to try life as an ex-bastard for a bit."  

"Oh really.  ...Interesting.  You know, Harry, this may well be the best thing that could have happened to Malfoy."  Ron sniggered.  Draco said nothing.  "But what are you going to do about getting rid of this thing?  There's got to be a way to get rid of it.  Dumbledore would know how, I know he would.  Or at least he'd be able to figure something out if you'd just tell him what's going on."  Hermione had finally relaxed;  she still looked concerned, but she didn't look like she was made of stone anymore.  In other words, she seemed about back to normal.  

Ron, on the other hand, was still horrified that I'd used the concepts of 'friend' and 'Malfoy' in the same sentence.  Before I could answer Hermione, he said, "Harry, you can't honestly believe that Malfoy's not a total git!  After all the things he's done to you?  To us?  He's a waste of space! A—"

"Ron, shut up.  Please."  I rubbed my forehead;  I was getting one hell of a headache.  "I'm telling you, he's different when you get to know him.  And I'd have to say I've gotten to know him.  And 'Mione, I really think it'll just wear off like everything else has.  You're not locked up in the dorm anymore, are you?  And Ron's not being a right git either.  —Well, not unusually so—" 

"Hey!" 

"—so there's no reason to think this won't go, too."  Even though I no longer wanted it to.  "Snape said that what could be treated had been, and everything would wear off eventually.  So why worry?"

"It's lasting longer than anyone else's side-effects, it could be something else that really needs to be treated—"  

"I don't think so, 'Mione.  If it gets worse, or becomes a problem, I promise you I'll go talk to Snape again or even Dumbledore.  But for now things are fine, alright?  Don't worry about me.  And I'm sorry I didn't tell you before, but I sort of wanted to avoid this whole thing, you know?"  I was exhausted.  I really, really hate arguing with friends.  For one thing, I have so few of them that it scares me to have trouble between us—what if they just go away?   "And we've missed dinner, dammit."  My stomach was growling.

"I'll go get something from the house-elves."  Ron levered himself to his feet.  "But I still think you're completely barking mad, mind you."  And he was gone.  I looked at Hermione, afraid she wanted to continue badgering me to go see Snape.

"Well, I don't agree with you, but as long as you swear you'll go if anything changes...  Maybe you should ask Malfoy to come up here and have dinner with us, Harry."

"What?"  

_:WHAT?:_

"If you're going to try to be his friend, Harry, the least he can do is try to be civil to your friends.  I'd like to see exactly how hard he's working on this being nice thing."  She rose and picked up her books.  "And while you talk to him about that, I'm going to put my things away."  And she was gone.

_:...Er...heh.  Want to come to dinner?:_

:I...suppose.  Although I've actually already eaten.  No one kept me from dinner to ask me why I'm acting strangely.  Maybe because pairing with you in Potions aside, I've not BEEN acting strangely.:

:Sure, make it my fault.:

_:Isn't it?:_  He laughed;  it tickled my mind and felt somehow like I'd stepped into a shaft of sunlight, warm and bright.  _:Anyway.  You'll have to meet me somewhere, I don't know where the Gryffindors shack up.:_

:I never thought I'd hear you say 'shack up'.  Funny.:

:All sorts of things are changing, aren't they?:

:Looks like it, doesn't it?  Meet me—hmm—oh, just meet me in the Great Hall.:

:Why do I have this feeling you DO know where the Slytherins shack up?:

:Maybe because I do?:

:I should have guessed.  Damn you, you sneaky bastard.:

:Hey, can you blame me for snooping around?:

:...No, actually.  I am a bit envious though.  I thought I was the king of sneaky bastards.:

_:Sorry to seize your title, Your Majesty.:_  I headed out the portrait hole and down towards the Great Hall.  

_:You're not forgiven.:_

A passing second-year looked at me oddly as I laughed out loud.

_:You know, I really LIKE you now, Draco.:_

:Don't let Weasley hear you say that.:

_:Didn't intend to.  For a while anyway.  ...So what exactly's happened that made you stop acting such a nasty prat?  I can't imagine you apologising to Hermione even a week ago, let alone planning to come to the Gryffindor commonroom and be civil to my friends.:_  A sudden thought struck me and I asked, alarmed, _ : —You ARE planning on being civil, aren't you? :  _

:Yes.  I am.  And I just...thought about what you'd said.  A lot.  And...being nasty is sort of lonely.  I figure why not try being pleasant and see what happens?:

_:I really hate that you pick up so much more from me than I can from you,:_ I complained.  _:It seems unfair.  You always know what's going on with me, and I never get anything from you unless you want me to.:_

_:Like I said, I think it's because I've been keeping myself to myself for—well, all my life, really.  And you haven't.  Not trained in deception, you know.:_  He sounded a bit bitter.  _:Just another difference between Gryffindors and Slytherins, I suppose.  We're hardwired and raised for subterfuge and you carry what you feel and think on the outside for all to see.:_

_:That...makes sense.:_  I was almost to the Great Hall.  I remember, when I was a scrawny first-year, the walk between the Great Hall and the portrait hole had seemed to take aeons.  I'd been exhausted half that year 'til my legs got stronger.

_:You were cute.  Scrawny, yes, but cute.:_

I emerged into the Great Hall and spotted him instantly, sitting all by himself at the Slytherin table.  He rose as soon as he saw me and walked across the Hall to meet me.  I took a quick moment to admire the fluidity of his movement before replying.

_:And now I'm a great, gangly thing, lost to the realms of cuteness forever, I'm sure.:_  We grinned at each other as we left the Hall, side by side.

_:I'd not say that, exactly, just graduated from cuteness and destined for better things.:_  I snickered.  _:Laugh if you want, it's the truth.:_

:Right.:

:One of these days, Harry, you'll learn how to take a compliment properly.: 

:Never.:

He changed the subject suddenly.  _:We must look strange, wandering around like we're lost in thought and laughing to ourselves randomly.:_

:I'm quite sure we do.  I've been getting a lot of odd looks.:

:Ah, too easy an opening.  I won't even take advantage of it and mock you cruelly.  It's not sporting.:

:Since when do you care if it's sporting or not?:

:Since today.:

:Good enough.  ...It's going to take a while to get used to the 'new you'.  I keep expecting you to act one way and then you don't do it.:

_:Yeah, well, six years of negative reinforcement tends to do that.:_  That bitterness was there again.  We were only a few yards from the portrait hole, but I stopped dead and when he kept moving, seized him by the arm.  He blinked at me, confused.

_—such long eyelashes he has—_  

"Listen to me, Draco."  My voice echoed weirdly in the hallway.  I wasn't used to hearing it anymore, and his name slid smoothly off my tongue, but unfamiliar.  So strange.  His attention was instantly caught.

_:Forget what's happened, what's over.  It's gone, it's done.  You can't change what you were.  There's no use hating yourself for it.:_

_:But—:_  His eyes shimmered just a bit in the torchlight.  I prayed he wouldn't cry;  I didn't think I could bear that.  _:I wasted so much time.  I hurt so many people, so many times—:_

_:NO.:_  I gripped him by the shoulders and gave him a little shake.  _:That's OVER now.  Make what amends you can and let it go.  LET IT GO.  What matters isn't what you have been, it's what you ARE.  You've not killed anyone, just been an arse.  And don't worry about wasted time!  You've the rest of your life now.:_  He stared at me with silver eyes heavy with unshed tears, and I knew they'd spill over before it actually happened.  I brushed them off of his cheeks, ending up with his face cupped in my hands.  _:You've been hurt by all this too, Draco.  Don't make it worse.  What matters is today.  NOW.  And everything's going to be okay.  I swear it.:_  

I'd hoped to calm him.  Instead he sucked in one great, gulping breath, and burst into tears.  I pulled him into my arms and murmured quiet reassurances into his silky hair.  At that moment I'd have given anything, anything at all, to make things better.  Instead all I could do was feel his pain beating in pulses in my head and try to comfort him.

Thank all the gods, the hallway was deserted.  Everyone was in the commonroom, I suspected.  It was a Friday, after all.  There were 'beginning of the weekend' parties to be held.

Finally he cried himself out;  it felt like it'd been hours, but probably was only a few minutes.  He sniffled a bit, and I took the chance of letting go of him with one hand to pull my handkerchief out of my pocket.  He took it and turned away to use it.  

_:I think I've made a mess of your robes.:_  His mental 'voice' was flat and emotionless, directly opposite his outburst.

_:Like I care.  They were dirty anyway.  Are you okay now?:_  I asked, still quite concerned.  I'd never seen Draco lose control like that, ever.  And I suspected that it hadn't happened often before, and then always when he was alone and quickly suppressed.

_:Fine.:_

_:Let's go to the restroom, shall we?  There's one just this way.:_  He didn't protest, but followed me almost meekly as I set off towards the closest boy's toilets.  He kept his head down and had stuffed my handkerchief into one pocket.

In the restroom, he washed his face in cool water, and I took off my robes and bundled them up under one arm.  I don't mind being cried on, nor used as a handkerchief, but I'd rather not walk around with bogies smeared on my clothes if I can help it.  

He looked slightly the worse for wear, but his eyes weren't nearly as red as I'd expected them to be, and weren't swollen at all.  _:Gods damn you, you even CRY pretty.  How the hell do you manage it?:_

He laughed weakly.  _:Pure luck, Potter.  An accident of birth.:_

:Now, don't use my words against me.:

Draco looked up at me suddenly, his eyes hard.  _:If you tell anyone about this, I'll kill you.:_

_:Oh right!  Who am I going to tell?  Why would I tell anyone?:_  I threw my hands in the air, exasperated.  _:Of course I'm not going to tell anyone!  Relax, Draco, will you?  You're not weak for crying, and I'm not going to tell anyone, and everything's STILL going to be alright, so just settle down!:_

He stared at me again for a long moment, then nodded.  

_:...Just remember, will you, that I'm not out to get you?:_  I added with a sigh.  _:I'm not trying to be the enemy.:_

:...I'll try to remember.  I'm sorry.:

:DON'T be.  Just get some of your old arrogance back together and get ready to face Hermione and Ron.:

:—Oh gods.  Yes.  I'll...need just a second more.:

_:Sure, take as long as you need.:_  I was in no hurry to get there myself, come to that.  I didn't trust Ron to be civil.  In fact, now that I thought about it, Ron might not even know Draco was coming!  Oh _gods_.  I buried my face in my hands.

"Um, Harry?"  His voice sounded as strange to me now as mine did, and he had reached out to clasp my shoulder with one hand.  "I thought you said everything was going to be alright."  

I answered him out loud as he'd done, understanding that he might need a bit of space just now.  "It will.  I just hope Hermione's told Ron that you're coming."

"Oh, _fuck_."  

"Yeah."

"Maybe I should...er...maybe you should go in first, and let him know?"

I considered this for a moment, then shook my head.  "No, best to just bull it through.  He'll probably be speechless for a while, but if you're civil 'Mione will make him at least be polite.  Mostly.  Anyway.  We'll deal with him.  Okay?"

_:Okay.:_  I took it as a good sign that he was ready to talk mind-to-mind again, instead of shutting me out.

_:Let's do it, then.:_

And we headed back to the portrait hole.


	7. chapter seven

The entire room (which was indeed stuffed full of partying Gryffindors) fell silent as Draco crawled through the portrait hole behind me.  They stared as I led him across the room to the table in the corner where Hermione and Ron waited.  Draco carried himself admirably;  he raised his chin just a bit and sailed through the room radiating self-confidence and his right to be there.  Thankfully, there were four chairs at the table, and Ron didn't seem to be swallowing his tongue, though he did have a white-knuckled grasp on his fork.  My stomach growled at the sight of the food he'd brought up.  

We sat down, Draco and I across from 'Mione and Ron.  I tossed my robes in a heap in the corner.  "'Lo again," I offered lamely.

No one said anything.  The commonroom around us began to buzz again with conversation, far more quietly now that everyone was trying to whisper.  Draco ignored it all regally.

"Um, did you have any trouble getting dinner?"  I was determined to get SOME kind of response out of Ron.  

He shook his head, hesitated, then said, "No, same as usual."  He coughed.  "They even gave me some Butterbeer;  I think Filch has a secret stash with them or something."  He pulled out two bottles, a third, then—reluctantly—a fourth one from under his chair.  We each took one gratefully.

"Gods, how many of these did they give you?" I asked.

"You won't believe this...a whole case.  24 bottles.  I had to use a Levitating spell to get  all this stuff back."  He smirked for a moment before remembering to glare at Draco.

"I'm sorry for being such an arse," Draco said suddenly.  "To both of you.  All of you."  He glanced at me for a moment, then back to Hermione and Ron.  "I've been a right git, and I'm sorry."

Ron choked on his Butterbeer, and Hermione was occupied in pounding on his back for a bit before she could answer.  Finally she turned back to Draco.  "I won't deny that you have been a right git, and you've done some things that I don't know that I can forgive you entirely for, but thank you for the apology."

Draco nodded and went back to examining the grain of the table.  _:I know I'll have to prove that I mean it before anyone will really believe me,:_ he said quietly in my head.  _:I've been an arse for far too long for anyone to turn around and trust me out of nowhere.:_

_:If they could just see you like this—:_

_:But they can't.  They're not in my head.  They can't sense my sincerity like you can.  And they're entirely right to be distrusting.  I don't blame them at all.:_

Under the table, I reached over and squeezed his hand.  _:Thank you for understanding.  And truly, when everyone relaxes, you'll find they're very good people.:_

_:I believe you.:_

Our hands hadn't quite drifted apart, and acting on impulse I twined my fingers with his and drank my Butterbeer with my other hand.  

_:For reassurance,:_  I explained.  He didn't answer, but neither did he draw away.

Things became slowly less awkward as we finished eating and cleared away the plates.  Hermione dug out a thick book on Egyptian wizards of the 18th dynasty, and I challenged Ron to a game of chess, with Draco to play the winner.  Naturally I lost, as I'd expected.  Ron found that Draco was a very good player though, unlike Hermione or myself, and before long they were both scowling at the board and shouting at each other when one or the other took a piece.  It was quite amusing, and I caught Hermione smiling at them over her book.  We exchanged winks, and I grinned.  Ron and Draco didn't notice, completely immersed in their game and oblivious to the world.

Finally Ron manoeuvred Draco into checkmate.  He let out a great "HA!" then leapt up and did a vaguely frightening victory dance, punching the air and cackling.  I glanced at Draco, who was calmly setting up the board again.

_:You let him win, didn't you.: _

_:Not exactly.  I just stopped trying to win somewhere near the end.  He's very good, you know.  I quite enjoyed playing him.:_

_:Thank you.:_

_:I didn't do it for you.:_

_:I know.  Thank you anyway.:_

Draco turned to look at me with a luminance in his eyes I'd never imagined, and opened his mouth to say something— 

But Ron sat down again just then and said firmly, "Great game, mate.  We'll have to play again some time.  This lot—" —he gestured at Hermione and I— "—can never really give me a good match.  It's a nice change to play someone who's really good."

The moment was broken.  Draco turned back to Ron and grinned.  "Same here.  No one in my house can really give me a challenge anymore.  This was a lot of fun."   

"Care for another game then?"  Ron looked truly eager.  I wasn't too surprised, since he and Draco really were very good at chess, and Hermione and I really were very bad.

"Unless Harry's bored—" They both turned to look at me, and when I shook my head in denial, they both focussed on the chessboard again immediately.  

I excused myself eventually to run upstairs and drop my robes down the laundry chute;  no one really noticed anyway.  I returned with my broomstick in one hand and my servicing kit in the other.  I swear, that kit was the best birthday gift anyone's ever given me.  I've thanked Hermione a thousand times for it, and I still feel the urge to thank her again whenever I use it, which is several times a week, to be honest.

Ron and Draco were completely immersed in their game;  Draco seemed to be winning this time.  Hermione looked up from her book and motioned for me to sit beside her.  

"It seems to be going well," she murmured as I sat down.

"So it does," I replied.  "Better than I'd expected, actually."

"Same here."  She smiled at me.  "I'd never anticipated him actually apologising.  Did he mean it, do you think?"

"He absolutely meant it.  I—talked to him a lot that first day;  he couldn't go anywhere, so I took the opportunity and told him what an arse he'd been and why.  He didn't like it, but he's thought about it and ended up agreeing with me.  To the point that he doesn't much like himself anymore.  —Although I suspect he didn't much like himself before, actually."  I ran my hand along the smooth handle of my Firebolt and hoped I'd not said too much.  It was a fine line to walk, between what Hermione needed to know to understand why I was supporting Draco and what would leave Draco too vulnerable.  

"Are you sure he's not been misleading you?  I hate to ask, Harry, but...this is so out of character for him..."  She was truly reluctant to ask;  her words were stumbling and hesitant.

"'Mione, if he lied to me, I'd know it.  Honestly.  When you're meshed with someone else's thoughts, you know when they mean something;  and all the bits they don't actually say come through to you anyway.  He 'hears' me all the time when I've not meant him to;  I never get anything from him anymore unless he means me to, but all the same, I'd KNOW if he didn't mean what he'd said.  And he's said quite a lot.  I can't make you believe me, Herm, but I've heard and sensed a lot more from him than I can ever convey;  if anyone's ever been truly honest with me, he has, I swear."

She still looked a bit concerned.  "Since you vouch for him, Harry...but he's been so nasty for so long, to you as well as the rest of us...I just find it difficult to entirely believe him now."

"I understand, 'Mione.  I was hesitant to believe it myself for a bit, but really you CAN'T lie to someone when you're in their head, the harder you try to concentrate on what you want them to hear the more they sense that you're hiding something.  He IS better than me at keeping most of his mind private, but if he was trying to deceive me, I'd know.  And to support that, I saw him become really, truly upset about what he's done to people;  he doesn't even like himself much anymore, 'Mione.  He couldn't have faked that.  Maybe someone truly cruel and cold-hearted could have, but not him, really, 'Mione, I think I know him now."  I took a deep breath and thought Oh damn I think I might have said too much.  Fuck me, I can't betray Draco when he's trusted me with so much!

_:Don't worry, you've not said too much.  Now, if you said 'Oh, he cried like a baby in my arms and smeared bogies all over my shoulder' I'd have to kill you.  As it is you're okay.:_

_:You've been listening, then?  What about your chess game?:_  I'd thought him too immersed in the game to really pay attention to anything else.

_:You were thinking rather loudly, you know.  And so far nothing can quite drown you out, no matter how fascinating or immersive.: _ Then, a bit shyly, _:And I can't say that I quite mind.:_

_:You—don't mind this—thing? What we've got?: _ Again, another demonstration of my utter eloquence.  Gods, sometimes I wish I was mute, really.

It didn't seem to matter this time.  _:No...not anymore.  The first day, maybe, I minded.  Now—I'm sort of glad to have you around.  Sort of like the best friend I never had.: _ He felt he'd said too much with that last bit, I could feel it;  he felt embarrassed and self-conscious, and was waiting for me to step on his newly-exposed feelings.

But I had no inclination to do so.

_:I don't mind it either,:_  I confessed in a rush.  _:It's really lonely now when you're not around.  I mean, you're always THERE somewhere in the back of my head, but when we're shutting each other out, you know, it's...lonely.  I guess.  I...:_  And now *I* felt like a fool, red-faced and stammering.  Hermione had clearly noticed that I was thinking at him again, and was waiting for me to give her my attention again;  she was gazing off towards the fireplace thoughtfully.  I felt just a bit rude before Draco spoke again, after moving a chess piece.  His bishop took Ron's rook, which cursed and stomped off the board.  I noticed that Draco's pieces were actually less violent than Ron's, which surprised me a bit, particularly as they were technically my pieces, and had never showed merciful tendencies before.  Maybe it depended on the player?  Weird.

_:When you're not THERE in my head I feel empty,:_  he blurted, closing his eyes momentarily, his hands clenching on the edge of the table.  _:Like something vital is missing and I'm bleeding my life away.: _   

I didn't say anything for a bit, then turned to Hermione.  "Would you be horribly offended if I didn't talk for a while?  I think Draco and I need to talk about something important."

She turned from the fire to me with a slight smile.  "I'd sort of gathered that, Harry.  Go ahead, I'll just go back to my reading.  Let me know if you need to talk to me again later."  And with that she was lost in her book.

_:Draco, where are you in your game?:_  I asked.

_:I could win in 12 moves, or I could lose in 4.  Why?:_  Underneath his curiosity lay a vast pool of apprehension, largely created by my not answering him.  I cursed myself for being unkind yet fucking again.

_:If you don't mind horribly, would you lose? Or at least wrap it up as quickly as possible?  I really would like to talk to you privately.:_

Draco's eyebrows rose as he studied the chessboard.  _:Alright;  I think beating me again would do Weasley a load of good when it comes to goodwill towards me.  I've no real objection;  I know I'm better than he is anyway, but only slightly.  He could beat me on his own some nights, I think, particularly without the Butterbeer.:_

_:Alright.  I'll...um...trim my Firebolt's twigs then, 'til you're done.: _ I've always been one of those people who, once they've come to a conclusion, can't refrain from acting it out right then and there.   I may not always get to the answer right away, but when I do, I tear forward and seize it.  It was purest torment to have to sit and examine my Firebolt for bent twigs or smudges when I knew what I needed to be doing.   

Finally (FINALLY!) the game was over.   Ron had won again.  He tried to keep from gloating too obviously;  good chess manners had been beaten into him along with the general rules at home in the Burrow.  Draco took his defeat calmly and politely, congratulating Ron on his victory without rancour.  

I chose this moment to stand up and clear my throat.  The Gryffindors nearest glanced at me, but by this point we were far from the most interesting thing in the room, and their attention wandered again almost immediately.  "Care to come upstairs, Malfoy?"  I asked, knowing the answer.

"I suppose..."  he drawled, while looking idly around the commonroom.  "I'm a bit too tired to play chess anymore, lounging about in a dormitory wouldn't go amiss now."  

Ron didn't object, but hurried to the largest cluster of people around the fireplace, eager to tell them of his dual victories over the Slytherin chess champion. 

"Later, 'Mione,"  I murmured as I led Draco up the spiral staircase to the 6th year dormitory.  She waved at us, then returned to her book.


	8. chapter eight

sorry kids, didn't mean to leave you out in the dark for so long. i'd originally planned on posting this on wednesday or so; things happen though, and therefore i'm a bit late.

anyway, here you are. thanks to all you reviewers, lots and lots of thanks! and...without further ado...on to the snogging!

* * *

Draco and I worked our way up the stairs 'til we finally reached the 6th year boy's dorm;  I both dreaded and looked forward to next year, since we'd be on the topmost level of the tower.  The hike up/down was a real pain sometimes (particularly when you'd not gotten used to it yet and your legs were quivering and painful by the time you got there) but the view became more spectacular with each move upwards, as did the luxury of the rooms.  By this point we'd pretty much ended up with separate rooms, really something like a cubicle, each bed separated from the next by ceiling-high walls, like a sort of dressing-room set-up.  A bit away from the foot of each bed the enclosing side walls ended, opening onto a common windowed area.  Each of us had curtains at the foot of our bed to close off our own almost-room.  I led Draco to mine.

_:Nice posters.:  _

_:Shut up.  They were the best I could find.  And I like them.:_  I'd put up several Quidditch posters, mostly because I liked to study the moves the players made as they swooped around,  and two large Rackham prints that I particularly loved.  Especially as they didn't move.  It reminded me of my Muggle childhood.

_:I wasn't being sarcastic, Harry.:_

_:...Oh.  Sorry.:_

Draco sat down on the foot of my bed.  I closed the curtains at the opening to my cubicle, then sprawled amongst the pillows on my bed.  I still felt just a bit too exposed, and jumped up again to close the curtains 'round the bed as well.  Then I flopped down against my pillows again.

_:So.:_

_:Yeah.:_

_:You said you wanted to—:_

_:I wanted to say—:_

_:Er.:_

_:Yeah.:_

I examined my hands like I'd never seen them before;  Draco found the inside of my bed curtains suddenly of immense interest.

I snapped first, perhaps because by this point I had very little dignity left with which to get my ego involved. _ :You said you felt like something was bleeding inside you when I wasn't present in your mind and I feel the same way but I can't make myself think it's a bad thing because it feels so damned right when we're linked.:_

_:Er.  Yes.:_  Draco was still examining the nap of the velvet curtains intently.  

_:And I can't even make myself wish that this thing with us would end because I'm so fucking lonely when you're not THERE in my head and I don't know what to do...:_  I couldn't seem to shut up once I'd started.  Perhaps I'd had one too many Butterbeers.

_:Harry.  Shut up.: _ I shut my mouth with an audible click and dragged my gaze from the bedspread up to Draco's eyes.  They were heavy-lidded, opaque;  entrancing.  I couldn't look away.

_:Pay attention.:_  And Draco opened himself to me fully for the first time.

I saw/felt/knew how very, very lonely he was.  How this unexpected bond between us had hit him like a physical blow, right where he was most vulnerable.  How my anger and disapproval of his beliefs had sliced directly into his most tender and fearful insecurities.   How he'd struck out again and again because he'd never known anything else that prevented the world from striking him first.  How he'd been taught from birth that he was superior, and reprimanded when he didn't behave accordingly.  How he'd wanted my acceptance, my reciprocation of friendship from the beginning, and how hurt he'd been when I'd turned him away.  How desperately he needed this thing between us, how much he needed me, how much he needed my assurances that he was worth more than the dust under my feet.

An unknown length of time later I dragged myself out of his mind, shaking and aching with empathy.

Finally I managed to focus enough to say something to him.  _:You didn't need to do that...you could have just told me...:_

_:Would you have understood, really understood?:_  He hadn't moved since he'd let me in, except to drop his eyes to his clasped hands.  

_:...Probably not.:_

We sat silent again for a while.  The silence first weighed upon my chest, then tightened around my temples, then burned on every inch of my skin like I'd been dropped into a vat of molten steel.

Again I broke first.

"Come here, Draco."  His eyes flicked up to mine wildly when I spoke out loud;  then he closed them;  then obeyed me.  I'd never expected obedience from him, not at all.

He crawled up to me;  I shoved back the covers, pulled his robe off over his head, kicked off my shoes and tugged his away, hardly hearing them thud against the floor, and quenched the light with one wave of my hand.  Realised I'd forgotten to take off my glasses, swore softly, and put them on the bedside table before I finally reached for him.

He didn't resist at all as I pulled him into bed with me and dragged the covers over us both.

He didn't even resist when I did nothing more than snuggle up against him and enfold him in my arms.

Shortly, we'd both fallen asleep.

*  *  *

_Our dreams mingled as we'd both grown to expect by now.  This time there weren't any real surprises when it came to content;  we found ourselves simply travelling hand-in-hand through our classes.  It was truly weird to be hand-in-hand with someone who was experiencing a completely different class than you were in;  particularly when you knew you were geographically as far away from them as the castle permitted.  And I spared just a moment to point out that we obviously had no lives since we were dreaming about GOING TO CLASSES.  Ugh.  But we were both reassured anyway.  The dreams were completely non-threatening, particularly as whenever the hint of trouble presented itself we defended each other.  The whole thing was actually soothing.   _

*  *  *

The next morning we were woken by Ron's shouting.

Fortunately, he hadn't discovered us.  He was shouting about Pigwidgeon casting a mute on his History of Magic essay.   Considering that 3 feet of parchment was a lot to recopy, I understood his distress, but was (I think understandably) more concerned with our current situation.

Draco roused more slowly than I, and snuggled back into my shoulder immediately after he'd sat up outright, shocked into instinctive response by Ron's vituperous volume.  _:Don't...have...t'get up...'s Saturday.:  _

_:Yes, love, but we're bound to be disturbed if we don't get up now.  Ron usually gets me up when he's ready to go to breakfast.:_

_:Don't...care.  Sleeeeeepy.:_

And his limp warmth was so sweet against me that I didn't argue further.  We both went back to sleep.

*  *  *

In fact, Ron didn't wake me up that morning;  nor that late morning, actually.  I finally woke up irreversibly around eleven;  Draco was still sleeping, half-sprawled over me,  wrapped in my arms.  I truly hate sleeping in my clothing, and the folds of my jeans and t-shirt aggravated me horribly as I lay there, digging into my flesh and wrapping 'round me in a nastily claustrophobic way, but extending the moment outweighed any discomfort I was in.

_:...So take off your clothes, silly.:_

I'd not had any clue that Draco'd woken up, and I started when I heard him.  _:But then I'd be—and then we'd have to stay for—or—:_  I was unprepared to deal with Draco's diamond-edged intellect here in this lazy, comfortable moment, and I let him see that.

_:So you'd be—and we'd stay for—or—:_  He chuckled silently.  _:So be it.  You're not comfortable, and I'm comfortable enough I'd do about anything not to have to get up yet.  Get naked, if that'll make you feel better.  I'm not averse to the idea.:_

So I did.  Even though I wasn't really comfortable with the idea.  I kept my back to him the whole time I was undressing, then slid back into bed as quickly and modestly as I could.  He laughed again mentally, and wrapped himself around me as soon as I'd settled back into the sheets.

I was hyperaware of his arm curling over my ribs, and his hand spread wide and pressed against my chest, holding me against him firmly.  I didn't actually object to any of it, but I was terrified that he'd sense my willingness for—whatever he offered really—and be disgusted.

_:Disgusted by you, Harry? Never.:_    I suddenly realised his hand was slowly stroking the skin of my torso from throat to navel...and I liked it.  

_:Are you doing this to keep us from having to get up yet?:_  I asked him.  I liked this sensation, yes, but I'd rather have had nothing, or a rejection, rather than let myself go into this and find later he'd not meant it.   

_:Maybe...but not really.  Not really.:_

_:Draco.:_  I rolled over to look deeply into his still-sleepy eyes.  _:What are you doing?:_

_:...I'm seducing you, Harry.  Do you have a problem with this?:_

I couldn't resist those half-lidded silver eyes.  _—So grey, like low clouds on a stormy day, like turbulent waters.—_    I closed my eyes.

_:No, Draco.  I don't.:_

He touched me freely after my admission;  running his fingertips lightly up over the heaving ridges of my ribcage, pausing (for an infinitely long moment;  I was desperate to feel his touch again) to scoop up his wand and cast a Silencing Charm on the four 'walls' around us.  (Curtains can be made to behave as a wall would in a Silencing Charm, if one has enough determination.  He clearly did.)

He dropped his wand again to drag his fingertips slowly from my knee up my inner thigh.  I moaned, and was embarrassed at my wanton response even as I made the sound.

_:Really, Harry, do you mind this?  ...Because I don't.  I want this. But not if you don't.:_

I didn't even have to think about it. _ :No.   I don't mind.  I want it.  I've wanted it for a long, long time.:_

He didn't hesitate any further.  I barely had time to gasp as he began to demonstrate his ownership of my body.  

(A/N:  just for kickflaw, insert much wild monkey sex here)


	9. chapter nine

yeah, so, it's been a while again. sorry. for those of you who're complaining that it's going too fast, explanations are coming, i promise.

i find it really interesting to get comparisons to 'the other mindlink fics' since i've never read any of them...didn't even think there'd be more out there, which is really kind of silly, since there's a thousand and one hp fanfics of every imaginable sort online somewhere. i'm resisting the urge to go out and read them because i don't want them influencing mine. maybe when it's finished.

if it helps the wait any, and yes i know it's been stretching longer and longer between chapters, my muse has rejoined me and i actually wrote a new chapter from start to finish today. that brings the grand total of finished or mostly finished chapters up to 13, so there'll be at the least 14 chapters to this thing. that ALSO means that there are 4 more already-written chapters waiting for me to get off my butt and post them, so fear not, but also don't get too excited since i'm doling them out to you. yes, i am milking each chapter for reviews, and i admit it unashamedly. hee.

finally, despite all your wishing, i don't THINK there will be any out and out lemons. i've never written one and i'm not sure if i'd want to...imagination does so much more and i kind of like segueing out on a closed door. but if one does somehow leap from my forehead like athena, i'll be sure to let you all know!

and on that note...on with the show!

* * *

It was hours later when we finally dragged ourselves out of my bed.

_:What are you going to say when your yearmates ask you where you were last night?:_

_:Tell them it's none of their business;  what else?:_

I thought about that for a minute.  _:Nothing, I suppose.  I just never thought that would be an acceptable answer to anyone.:_

I was sore all over, muscles I'd never realised I had complaining at me.  I loved every bit of it,  the pain as much a reminder as the bruises we'd both managed to acquire.  I made a mental note to wear turtlenecks for a while.  

_:Good thing I always wear turtlenecks anyway.:_

_:How very convenient for you.:_

He grinned as he pulled his robes back on.  _:I take it I shouldn't bother mentioning that I think turtlenecks are the ultimate in sexiness when it comes to slim men.:_

_:...I never knew you went that way, Draco.:_

_:I don't.  I generally find the human species—and every other species for that matter—revolting.  I make exceptions on an individual basis, mainly judging by mentality and not physicality.:    _

_:I gather I should be flattered...?:_

_:You could say that, yes.:  _ He turned to face me, suddenly serious.  _:I tell you this only because I think I really can trust you;  I find you unbearably attractive, physically AND mentally, and have for years.:_

I didn't know quite what to say, completely overwhelmed by what had just happened and what he'd just said, and so blurted out the chaos that was topmost on my mind.  _:So have I.  About you, I mean.  I mean, I, I like you and all, and you're really—I mean—oh gods, you're—perfect—and—:_

_:I get the point, Harry.:_

_:I.  Yes.  That.:  I had nothing more coherent to say._

_:Considering that you're far from eloquent at your best of times, I'll take that as a compliment.:_

_:...I'll ignore the insult there and...tell you that that's a...good idea.:_

He turned suddenly from tying his shoes and grasped my hand firmly while looking intently at the floor.  _:What are we going to do now?:_

_:...I...hadn't thought of it.  Just—the moment.:_

_:Well, the moment's over.  What do we now?  We're dressed, we're ready to face them all, but what happens when we do?  We act as though nothing has happened?  We come out and tell them all we're irrevocably in love?  We treat—what just happened—as a fling and move on, ignoring it?  What the hell is going on, Harry?:_

As usual, I couldn't find it in myself to lie about what I felt.  _:I think—I don't regret what happened, and to be honest, I'd like to—er—continue it, um...and if that...happens...I can't hide that from everyone for long.  I'm not...used to...hiding things.  As you know.:_

_:I can't hide this well either—unless it doesn't exist.:_

Somewhere in me it felt like dawn was breaking. _ :You don't want to....you want to...continue... —this?:_

He let go of my hand. _ :I don't start things I don't mean to finish, Harry.:_  His mind felt tart, slightly sharp.  The sensation of *sun rising* faded.

_:I don't end things I'm not finished with, Draco.: _ I was filled with rebelliousness, impulsiveness, ready to fight anything and everything, willing to do anything to continue this giddiness—for the moment.  And I knew how moments of happiness faded.  They always did,  didn't they?  Life was made out of unhappiness, really, with the occasional high point to keep you going.  

He answered my half-formed thoughts again._:That's how things are.  But—we can maybe—:_  He seemed afraid to finish the sentence.  

I encouraged him silently, reinforcing what I felt.   _:This is what we have.  I'm willing to fight to try to keep it.  Are you?:_

The absolute challenge, what neither of us had thus far dared to address.  It hovered between us, burning us both with its vital essentiality.  

He didn't answer me.  I finally turned away from him, focussing entirely on lacing up my shoes.  "Alright, that's fine.  I really didn't expect more.  Ought we to go to Dumbledore first to see about getting us out of each other's heads, do you think, or Snape?"  I couldn't bear the idea of maintaining this link with someone who'd seduced me, then wouldn't face the world with me.   I'd never been with anyone before;  the thought of having been with someone who wasn't willing to stand beside me afterwards tore me up inside.   I had to get rid of this vulnerability as soon as possible, now that I'd given so much of me to him and been turned away.  It was far too personal and exposing to maintain. I'd let too much of *me* out to him, far too much, and having this last meshing turned away instead of welcomed was more than I could bear.  Far too much of a slap in the face.

Without warning he flung his arms around me.  _:NO.:_  I could feel him trembling.  _:I mean yes, yes, I will, yes.  Don't turn away from me, Harry.  Please.:  _

_:Read 'Ulysses' much?:_

_:...What?:_

_:Nevermind.  Shut up and kiss me.:_

As it turned out we didn't leave the dormitory for a while longer.


	10. chapter ten

When finally we descended to the commonroom, we found it deserted apart from a group of first-years playing Gobstones.  They didn't even notice us as we crawled out through the portrait hole.

_:As we've not yet met your compatriots, Harry, I think maybe we should...hm...go for a walk.:_

_:To find them, you mean, or what?:_

_:I had a trip to someplace quiet where we won't be interrupted more in mind.  The library would be perfect.:_

_:That's if Hermione's not in there, you mean.  We can try, though, if you like.: _ I turned toward the library and Draco followed.  _:Why are we going there though?:_

_:Like I said, so we won't be interrupted.  I want to figure something out without input from anyone else distracting us.:_

_:Okay...:_  I felt apprehensive.  I always have when someone's said 'We need to talk' or whatnot;  for some reason I always feel like I've done something wrong and now they're going to make me pay for it.  Usually I'm wrong, but there it is.

_:You're wrong this time too.:_

_:Are you sure I'm not in trouble?: _ I knew how childish this sounded, but I really needed the reassurance.

A mental chuckle.  _:Of course I'm sure.  You're in nothing like trouble.  Unless McGonagall gets a hint of what you spent all morning and a bit of the afternoon doing, and where you were doing it.:_

I made a face.  _:I'd probably be expelled.:_

_:So would I, for defiling the Boy Who Lived.:_

_:Ugh, don't call me that.:_

_:Why not?  You are.  And you call yourself that sometimes, don't deny it.:_  He grinned at me, an endearing, lopsided grin.

_:Yes, but when I do, I'm always being a pompous git!:_  I wasn't joking, and he knew it.  He laughed, and after a moment I joined him.  _:Seriously, though, I hate that Boy Who Lived stuff.  For one thing, I can barely remember it, and it's not like I can personally take a lot of credit for what happened.  I get way too much attention because of the whole thing anyway.  I'd rather everyone forgot about it and just let me be ME.:  _

_:You mean that, don't you.:_

_:Yes, I do.  I mean, I like being special and all, and I like being paid attention to—somewhat—but I'd rather be known for the things I've done, say, since I was out of diapers, for a start.:  _

He laughed again.  :_Good point.  Alright, I won't call you the Boy Who Lived anymore.  Besides which, soon the title will be obsolete anyway.  You won't stay a boy forever, and the Man Who Lived When He Was A Boy sounds pretty damned stupid.  Or the Man Who Used To Be The Boy Who Lived.  Or even just the Man Who Lived.  Trust me, it'll pass into the realm of history textbooks sooner or later.:_

_:Oh gods, I hope you're right.:_

_:Of course I am.  I'm always right.:  _

I gave him a little shove with my shoulder. _:Don't sound so smug!:_

Draco looked at me with wide, innocent eyes.  _:Well, I am, aren't I?:_

_:...I'd say maybe...half the time.:_

Now he pretended to be hurt and outraged. _ :Only HALF the time?  Where have you been anyway?:_

...And the humour faded.  _:On the opposite side of a lot of nasty insults, mostly.  I'll have to take your word for it until I've had a real chance to see you in action.:_

_:...Good point.:_

We each left the other to his own thoughts the rest of the way.

The library, shockingly, did not contain Hermione.  I wondered if she and Ron had wandered off somewhere on the grounds to talk about yesterday.  I personally thought it was a very good thing for she and Ron to have some time alone;  I was getting tired of Ron's hesitant idiocy about his feelings for her (I'd never had any idea anyone could be so completely oblivious for so long!) and I was afraid that before long, Hermione would too.  She was far from unnoticed these days by boys from all houses, and Viktor Krum still sent her the occasional letter.  Ron just fumed through it all.  Maybe not having me around so much would help the situation.  I could only hope.

Draco found us a nice, secluded table.  Not that there was anyone in the library besides us anyway on a fine Saturday afternoon, but I guess it made him feel better anyway.  Or he was just used to lurking.  Heh.

We each wandered the shelves for a few moments, picking out a book to (appear to) read.   Draco finally returned lugging a thick, dusty tome, and pretending to be absorbed in mine (I was actually just looking at the pictures, which were a little dull for me as it was an herbal) I asked, _:So what did you want to talk about?:_

_:Well, us, really.  We never finished that conversation.:_

I fought hard not to smirk. _ :Oh, yes we did.:_

_:I didn't mean physically.:_

_:Oh.:_

_:What I mean is, what ARE we going to do?  We've still got the rest of this year and all of next to be in school.  We're irrevocably in different houses.  Your friends are, just barely, reconciling themselves to our mere FRIENDSHIP;  I'd not like to ask them to understand our—current relationship—shut up, Harry, stop smirking like that—so quickly.  What about the rest of the school?  The rest of our respective houses?  What about my parents?  What happens if we come out entirely and change what everyone's used to us being overnight?  There's going to be trouble, Harry.:_

I mulled that over, smirking temporarily forgotten.  _:So you're saying we should keep this hidden.:_  I was ever so slightly hurt;  I'd wanted to go singing through the hallways.  But obviously Draco had put a lot more thought into this than I had.

_:Discrete, anyway.  Private.  For now.  Let the world see us become friends, that's one thing.  We can just blame it on the two days stuck with each other in the hospital wing, which technically is what it comes down to.  Let them get used to that.  See what happens.  THEN, maybe, tell Ron and Hermione.  See how THEY take it.  And then, especially if we've got them at our backs, we can take on the world.  But if we go from loathing each other to being flamingly infatuated with each other within a matter of days—there's going to be questions, at the very least.  And that, really, is what I'm most worried about.  Disfavour I can handle.:_

_:They'll want to know why.  And if this gets to the teachers, they'll be upset—:_

_:They'll be a lot more than upset, Harry, they'll be infuriated, and they'll do everything they can to return us to 'normal'.  Which means that eventually Snape and Pomfrey will remember what you wrote on that parchment, and they'll find a way to sever the mindlink.:_

_:And Hermione and Ron know, and could save them the time of trying to figure out what's gone wrong with us.:_

_:Exactly.:_

_:Oh, damn.: _ I turned pages studiously, trying not to be too obvious about my left hand being clenched in my hair.  _:So what's your suggestion?  You sound as though you have one.:_

_:Not really.  Just what I said before, start with letting them see a friendship develop.  And I mean develop, not burst into flower...we'd have to see less of each other for a bit.  Then let Ron and Hermione in, if we think they'll understand.:_

_:We...if we do, we should let them think the mindlink has faded.  If it hasn't by then.:_

_:I'm beginning to wonder about that.  Has it seemed to you that it's been getting stronger?:_

_:I hadn't really thought about it.: _ I paused to do exactly that, pretending to be completely absorbed in a description of the magical properties of  North American death camas.  I tested the boundaries of my mind, probed at that part of it that since the potions incident always whispered _dracodracodraco_ and concluded that yes, it had indeed strengthened.  _:I hadn't noticed...I thought, when I thought about it, that it might be fading a bit since we could keep things from each other, or at the least you could keep things from me...:_

_:I think that's just practise.  And if you wanted to badly enough, you could do the same, but to be honest I kind of like it.  Even if it does seem a bit unfair at times, I like knowing what you're thinking.  It's...comforting.  I've never been able to trust anyone before, because I could never quite know what they were doing when I wasn't around.  With you I always know, and I'm always pleasantly surprised.:_

I'd gained enough control that I managed not to blush, but I gave him a faint mental caress that made him shiver oddly.  _:...So if it's not fading but growing stronger...do you really think it's possible that it might not pass?:_  The idea first made me feel like my heart was swelling out throughout my entire body, making even my scalp tingle, but then became edged with the tiniest bit of fear.

_:I'm—hoping.  It seems possible, yes.  I...I don't know for sure.  I don't know whether it would be a good or bad thing if it did.: _ I glanced up;  he was staring at the grain of the table between us, not his book.  

_:Why might it not be a good thing?: _ I needed to hear him say what I could feel roiling just underneath his words.

_:...I...I'm afraid—: _ He stopped, then burst out in a rush, _:I'm afraid you won't like me if you see too much of me.  If you see what I really am.:_

_:Draco—:_  I reached out one hand across the table, possible spectators be damned, and lightly touched his where it clenched the top of his book white-knuckled.  _:How could I not love you? I don't expect you to be perfect.  Gods above and below, I'M far from perfect.  What I've seen of you proves to me that you're more than I could rightfully have expected.  Of course you'll let me down sometimes, those things happen to everyone.  But you—how could I not like you?  Just continue as you've been as best you can, and I'll be more than satisfied.:_

_:But—: _ He was as tortured now as he'd been last night, though the only outward signs of it were his bloodless knuckles and the subtle fact that he was trying to bite through his lip.  _:But—I've hurt things—and people—and I've LIKED it.  I've LAUGHED.  And I'm supposed to be, I'm supposed to become—a—:_

_:A Death Eater.  Like your father, maybe even your mother for all I know.  I know that, Draco.  I also know you've not taken the Dark Mark yet.  I did spend quite a lot of time going over your entire body today, remember.: _ Despite myself I felt a smirk coming on again, and repressed it fiercely. _ :So you've not taken it.  DON'T DO IT.  It's not too late, Draco.  You've done those things, yes.  Would you do them again today?:_

_:No—:_

_:Tomorrow, then?  The day after?  Would you do them again and ENJOY it?:_

_:Gods, NO...:_

_:There.  That's all it needs.  You're not who you used to be, Draco.  You're more.  I don't care who you used to be.  I don't care what you've done.  I forgive you all that.  Look at me, Draco.:_

Slowly, trembling and reluctant, he pulled first his face then finally his eyes to meet mine.  I tried as best I could to put my heart into my eyes.  _:I FORGIVE YOU.  I believe in you.  I'm not asking you to change overnight, although actually you kind of have already but nevermind;  I'm not asking you to be perfect, I swear.  Just face NOW with me, Draco.  Forget about yesterdays.  I mean that.  You can't change the past, but you've got infinite possibilities for the future.:_

He managed not to cry this time.  I squeezed his hand just a little, then returned to paging through my book for a while, giving him some space.  

Finally, a tiny whisper threaded into my mind.  

_:Will you help me, Harry?:_

I smiled as widely, as happily as I ever have.  

_:Of course I will, love.:_


	11. chapter eleven

Eventually we had to switch books;  even Draco's huge tome came to an end eventually, particularly since he wasn't really reading it, and we both went off and came back with others.  I brought a stack, he only brought a couple.

_:So...let's plot, shall we?: _ I felt a bit duplicitous, and I can't entirely deny that I liked it.  _:Let's start at the beginning.  We've got to see less of each other for a little bit, I agree, but that doesn't mean we can't talk to each other.  Though the word 'talk' has become frustratingly inadequate lately.:_

Draco waved this away impatiently. _ :We can discuss the inadequacies of the English language some other time.  If we're going to keep on conversing when we're apart, we're going to have to become better at concealing it.  We can't have people noticing;  that would give us away as surely as becoming suddenly glued to each other.  I think it would really be wisest to keep silent except when we're sure we won't be observed, like now.  Or, say, History of Magic and the like.  Odd moments here and there when we're unobserved or it'd be normal for us to be staring blankly into space.  But no more often than we usually do, mind.:_

I didn't like it, but I had to agree. _ :Surely we can get better at concealing it though!  We just need practise, more practise.:_  I tried not to think of myself as pleading, but I knew secretly I was.

_:Harry, I hate to be the one to point this out to you, but you're not the most subtle.  I'd far rather not take the chance, especially considering who we'd be trying to fool.  Snape, McGonagall, Hermione, even Dumbledore if that misfortune should strike us—they'd NOTICE if you were talking to me most times.  They'd at least notice that something was going on, even if they didn't know quite what.  That's precisely what we're trying to avoid.:_

I sighed a little.  _:Fine, if you really think it's best.  But I don't like it.:_

_:Neither do I.  But I really think it's best in the long term.:_

_:Okay, fine.  What else?  See less of each other—like how much less?:_

_:Oh, I don't know—just start out with not cursing at each other in the halls, I suppose.  A nod or something at first.  Civility.  Maybe partner each other in Potions again next week, or the week after, or Care of Magical Creatures.  Your lot has seen me over in the evening once, so maybe we do that again a couple of times a week, maybe once on the weekend.  After a couple of weeks of that, I can come visit you at the Gryffindor table, or likewise.  The harder part is going to be to convince the Slytherins, honestly.  You Gryffindors are inclined to forgiveness and friendliness.:_

_:I know.  But, Draco, it's going to be awfully hard.:_

_:I know.  But there's always the evenings.  I suspect I'll be going to bed early rather often from now on.  I may have to feign some sort of malaise.:  He smiled briefly._

_:Draco—I've got an Invisibility Cloak.:_  I wasn't sure what I could do with it that would be wise, or at least not horribly risky, but at the same time I couldn't really make myself care about the risk.  Anything that made it possible to see him more often.

_:Oh, do you.  I'd suspected something of the sort.  That should...come in handy.  How well do you do without adequate sleep?:_

_:I've not gotten adequate sleep since I've been on the Quidditch team.  I seem to still be here.:_

_:Well, then.  We needn't spend our nights alone, as long as we can come up with reasonable excuses for taking to bed early.  Can you manage that?:_

_:Easily.  I often go to bed early anyway, just because I really DO suck at chess, I always wake up earlier than everyone else for Quidditch practise, and I do my homework faster than Ron anyway.:_

_:Alright then.  I tend to have erratic sleeping patterns, so no one will notice when I head to our dormitory, or whether.  With a good Silencing Charm, your Invisibility Cloak and a bit of luck, no one will ever know where we're spending our nights.  Particularly if we wear our watches and have an Early-Waking Charm set on them.  Meticulously.:_

_:That makes the days sound...more bearable.:_

_:It won't be forever.  In a few weeks at the most we should be able to openly prefer each other's company, at least as friends.  We just need to be most careful about not mindtalking to each other.:_

_:Which will be bad enough in itself.:_

_:I'm sure we'll be able to sneak it in in odd moments.  We've just got to be careful.  Remember, if anyone suspects it, or if Hermione thinks it's not gone away, we're in danger of having it TAKEN away.:_

_:High odds we're playing against.:_

_:But look at what we're trying to win.  It's worth the effort.:_

I had to agree.

*  *  * 

Shortly afterwards I left the library alone.  I passed a single seventh-year Ravenclaw on his way to the library, then headed outside.  The sunshine was wonderful, beating hot on my face and hair

_—like Draco's chest pressed against my face, petal-soft skin burning mine—_

and making me raise my face to it with a faint smile.  I headed towards Hagrid's cabin first, keeping my eyes open for Ron and Hermione.  I spotted them on the edge of the Forest, a short walk from Hagrid's.  Ron was sprawled in the sunshine, limbs flung out, and Hermione was sitting in the shade-dappled area just barely out of the sun, half-reclined with her robes stuffed under her head.

"You just missed Hagrid," Hermione said as I sat down next to Ron.  "He had to go check out a rumour of Libertine Stoats running rampant in the forest."

I sprawled like Ron, savouring the heat of the sun, but taking Hermione's example and pulling my robes off for a pillow.  "I'll catch him later, maybe, or tomorrow."

"So what happened with Malfoy last night?"  Ron asked sleepily.  

"We talked for a long time, then I sent him off,"  I said, taking a chance.  

"I didn't hear you talking, weird,"  Ron said.  He didn't sound anything but lazy, though, not suspicious in the slightest.

"He cast a Silencing Charm to keep from keeping you all up."  Again, technically true, I thought.  "We didn't want to disturb anyone, and we had a lot to talk about."

"How's the link, Harry?"  Hermione asked.  

I knew it was she I really had to worry about.  Particularly since Ron had had quite a few Butterbeers last night.  "Actually, it's a lot fainter than it was yesterday."

"Really?"  She sounded excited and pleased, though not enough to sit up.  "That's excellent, Harry, really excellent.  Do you think it will keep on fading away?" 

I hated lying to her.  "It sure feels like it.  I don't think it'll stay."

"Oh, good,"  she said relievedly.  "I was really worried, Harry.  Let me know if anything else happens with it, okay?  I want to look at some things in the library just to be sure, but I want to know if anything changes."

"I will, 'Mione."  But I knew I wouldn't.  I felt like something scraped off of the bottom of someone's shoe.

_:It's only for a little while, Harry.:_  It flashed across my brain so quickly I couldn't be sure afterwards that I'd not imagined it.

 "So, Harry, are you serious about this thing with Malfoy?"  Ron asked.

"This _thing_, Ron?"  I forced myself to keep my voice level.  "Yes, I'm serious.  I've gotten to know him a lot better in the last few days than any of us have in the years before.  He hides a lot from everyone."

"So you say,"  Ron muttered.  "I'd like a lot more proof before I'll take his word on it."

To my astonishment, Hermione responded before I could.  "Ron, he apologised last night.  At least give him a chance to show he means it, will you?"

"Herm, I'd have thought you of all people would understand, with all the times he's called you a Mudblood—"

She cut Ron off.  "Yes, and that means that if he apologises and means it, he's got more to lose than we have by believing him.  If he means it, half his own crowd won't like him for it, and you know they leap on weakness.  Which that would be.  And if he doesn't mean it,  we've lost nothing, really;  just shown we're secure enough to trust in the good nature of people."

Ron wasn't entirely convinced.  "Shown we're gullible, you mean."

I saw my chance and leapt in.  "I'd say it shows that we're strong enough to give even our enemies a chance to play fair, rather.  And you can't say he cheated at chess last night, for example."

"That's true...he didn't...he's a good player, though, he could have had me a few times."  Ron pondered this.  "You've been in his head, Harry, you ought to have a good feel for what he means and what he doesn't.  Right?"

"I'd say I've got a better understanding of him than anyone else ever has, yes,"  I replied confidently.

_:Justifiable confidence.:_  I was getting better at letting no hint of these silent communications show in my face, I thought.  But I didn't dare try to send back;  I knew that Draco was far better at concealing his thoughts and feelings from the world than I was, and I didn't dare risk triggering suspicion.   Receiving was one thing, broadcasting what I thought/felt to him and yet not anyone else another.

"And you really think he means all this?"  Ron continued.

"I believe he does, absolutely,"  I said as firmly as I could.  

"Hm.  Then maybe he isn't such a bloody prat as he's seemed.  I still don't know why he's thought he could get off on acting like an arse for so long and then change his tune and expect to be believed, though."  Ron threw a piece of grass up into the heavy sunlight;  it arced down slowly and landed on my chest.  I flicked it off of my turtleneck, which was becoming ever so slightly too warm, and reminded myself not to even think of taking it off.

"Because he's insecure, Ron,"  Hermione answered.  "Haven't you ever realised that?  He's terribly insecure, he always has been, and can you imagine anyone better to have mindlinked with an insecure person than Harry?"  I said nothing;  I didn't really think I was all that therapeutic, but then Hermione's always been better at understanding people than I have.

"...I suppose not,"  Ron answered slowly.  I felt a real dunce, if Ron could see what Hermione was talking about and I couldn't.  Maybe it was just something I couldn't see from the personal angle, like, say, the small of my back.  

"Alright, Herm, I'll give you that.  I'm not saying I'll let him off for any of the things he's said and done, but...I'll wait a bit and see if he's serious about being sorry for all of it.  And for you, Harry, since you seem so set on it."  He rolled over, cooling his front in the faintly moist grass.

I rolled over as well;  he was wearing only a t-shirt and jeans, and this damned (necessary!) turtleneck was making me heat up far too quickly.  "Thanks, Ron."  I suddenly felt sleepy, breathing in the scent of the grass and feeling its coolness and faint prickliness against my face and stomach, while the sun pounded down hot on my back and legs, the back of my head, even my feet.  

"For some reason, every time you say 'Herm' I think 'worm'...probably a mixture of it rhyming and the word 'helminth', I always used to think it was herminth," I said half-dreamily.

"Worm?"  Hermione exclaimed.

"What the hell is a helminth?"  Ron demanded simultaneously.

"Seriously, Ron, don't you ever read?"  Hermione answered, disgusted.  "Helminth is a word developed from Greek meaning a worm or a wormlike creature, especially parasites.  Ugh."

"Sorry, 'Mione."  I hadn't meant to offend, I just hadn't really thought.  Again.  I was getting tired of eternally sticking my foot in my mouth, and silently vowed to keep my mouth shut for a while.  "I didn't mean I thought of you as connected with worms, just when Ron says that, that's what I think of..."  

"It's okay, Harry."  This time she did bother to sit up.  "Ron, the next time I hear you call me 'Herm', I'm going to transfigure you into a worm.  Don't even ask what I'll do if you do it again after that."  She glared at Ron until he looked up at her, imprints of grass pressed into his face, and swore he'd do his best not to do it anymore.

"Thanks a lot, Harry," he grumbled, after she'd finally lay back down.  

"Sorry, Ron, I didn't mean to..."  Gods, but I have a talent for saying exactly the wrong thing sometimes.  Especially when I don't mean to.  I could have hit myself.

_:Whatever happened to forgiving oneself, Harry?:_


	12. chapter twelve

It was nice to spend an evening with Ron and Hermione again, fooling around and joking with each other;  it was relaxing, to stop worrying about what would happen next and just fall back into normal patterns.  Every so often, though infrequently, Draco would whisper something in the back of my head, but that didn't seem to disturb my tranquility.  It too had become normal to me.  But all my anxieties, my concerns, I'd let go for now;  I spared no thought for worry or the future or what ifs or emotional stress of any sort.  Ron, Hermione and I laughed freely for the first time since before the whole potion incident began, and overall it was the best evening I could remember having.

Late that evening, we hauled ourselves, still laughing, to bed.  As I fell into mine Draco's scent surrounded me and for the first time that evening I remembered I had been supposed to go to bed early.

_:Oh love, I'm sorry.  I forgot!  I'm so sorry!:_

_:I know.  It's okay.  I saw.  I'm glad you enjoyed yourself so;  you needed it.   But if you don't drag yourself out of that bed and over here right now, I'm going to have to make you very, very sorry indeed.:_

_:...Er...how so?:_  I really was awfully comfortable, and my eyelids were drifting closed despite myself...

Until they flew open, and I sat straight up in bed before reaching for my clothes.

_:I thought that would get you up.:_  My head was still full of the images he'd wafted seductively through it, and my body was definitely awake now.

_:That wasn't nice.:_

_:I never said I was nice, did I.  I'm a Slytherin.  I'm effective, not nice.  Now, are you going to get over here, or shall I just go to sleep now?:_

_:I'm not sleeping, and you're not sleeping.  Especially after that.  Sadist.  And my pants don't fit now.  Damn you.:_

He felt smugly satisfied.  _:I'm sure you'll pay me back...somehow.:_

_:Oh, you've not the faintest idea.:_

_:Don't I?:_

_:...Okay, maybe you do.  Shut up, I'm trying to get dressed again, and it's not working, and I'm going to be walking all funny in the halls.:_

_:Good thing you've got an Invisibility Cloak, isn't it?:_

_:If I didn't, you'd be coming here.  Or else.  Or...I'd...gods damn it, I'd probably be doing just what I am now, except it would be a lot more embarassing.: _ I pulled my cloak on and walked as silently as I could out of the dormitory.  Thankfully Ron had fallen asleep the instant his head hit the pillow;  I could hear him snoring faintly.  I evaded a third-year on the stairs and managed to sneak out the portrait hole during a burst of activity in the common room with no one noticing.  The Pink Lady was used to me leaving in my Invisibility Cloak by now and didn't bother saying anything.  

The walk both felt agonisingly long and was over before I realised it.  Physical torment and urgency mixed do odd things to time.  I paused in front of a section of stone wall.

_:Not there, three paces further.  The password's 'draconis argentum'.  Don't laugh, I didn't make it up.:_

I moved three paces on and whispered_ "Draconis argentum,"_ at the wall.  It obligingly slid aside for me.  I was afraid that someone in the common room would notice me entering (or rather the door opening and no one appearing to enter) but I'd forgotten that the focus of the Slytherin common room was the fireplace;  no one was looking at the door at all.

_:We dislike having our comings and goings observed, so we generally ignore the door,:  Draco said.  :And it's not like most of us are going to give anyone else the password, now, is it?:_

_:Good point.  Now where?:_  He directed me to a stone passageway at the back, leading downward to a spiral staircase.  It smelled faintly musty, and I took the stairs carefully;  they felt like they ought to be slippery, whether they were or not.  

_:The sixth door down.  As I'm sure you could guess.:_

At last I reached the sixth door.  I felt like I was in some faintly threatening catacomb, like the Muggle book I'd read, _The Tombs of Atuan_.

_:Very literary.  Are you going to open the door, or just stare at it?:_

_:Shut up.: _ I pushed the door open and stepped into utter blackness.  Not being entirely stupid, I stepped off to one side of the door silently, so that anyone entering or leaving wouldn't walk into me, and waited for Draco to tell me where to go.  Or, failing that, for him to snicker, so I'd know where to go to beat the hell out of him.

_:No need for that.:_  At the ceiling, green lights sparked slowly into being, until they finally lit the whole room faintly.  The Slytherin sixth-year dormitory was the same as ours, but reversed;  the beds were on the right hand side of the door, not the left, and all the hangings were deepest green brocade with silvery patterns.  Then again, the whole room glowed a soft sickly green in the light.

I'd had enough.  _:Which one?: _ I growled.

The farthest curtain opened just a crack, held by one slim, long-fingered hand.  I strode towards it, forgetting to be silent, forgetting everything except my need and fury.

Draco was waiting, nude and beautiful and smiling.  Waiting for me to seize him and repay him.  I didn't disappoint.

*  *  *

"Are you coming to breakfast, Draco?"  

The gutteral voice roused me in an automatic state of alarm.  I wrenched my eyes open a tiny crack to see Draco half-swathed in the sheets beside me, wide-eyed.  He leaned over and grabbed his wand, made a dismissing gesture with it, then answered "No.  Go on without me.  I want to sleep in today."   He managed to sound irritated.

Two heavy sets of footsteps shuffled away. _ :What do you mean, 'managed to sound irritated'?  I AM irritated.:    _

_:Forgive me for thinking you might be alarmed at the idea of them opening the curtain to see us together.:_

_:I trained them well in first year not to EVER open my curtains when they were closed, no matter what.  I see that you either managed to sleep through an Early-Waking Charm, or we forgot to set one.:_

_:The latter.  Although, I see, we remembered to set a Silencing Charm.:_  I grinned.

_:So much for avoiding questions.: _ Draco didn't seem horribly repentant either.  _:Much as I would like to stay in bed, we should get up, though.  We've got to get you back to Hermione and Ron and think of a decent excuse for being up before them.:_

_:...I thought you were going to SLEEP IN.: _ I emphasised this with some creative fondling.  Draco sucked in a breath and managed not to hiss curses too loudly.  

_:I thought I was supposed to be the seducer.:_

_:It's my turn.  Now shush.  Or reset the Silencing Charm.:_

He chose to do the latter.

*  *  *  

It wasn't actually that long before we were finally ready to emerge and face the world again—somewhere around midmorning.  Sometimes a quickie behooves everyone.  _:So how are we going to do this?: _ I asked.  

_:Just follow close behind me until we get out the door.  Then we can split up at any point.:_

_:Sounds good to me.:  _

Our exit went smoothly.  I spent the time trying to think of a good excuse for missing breakfast.  

_:So, where were you all morning?:_

_:Couldn't sleep, so I got up early and did a bit of flying, then walked around the grounds.:_

_:Plausible enough.  I'll see you later, Harry.:_

_:So you shall.:_  I gave him a quick kiss just outside the door to the Slytherin common room and was off.


	13. a brief smut interlude

this is written for ivy, slytherlynx, libertine, and kickflaw. maybe for a few others, i forget. forgive me, it's the middle of the night; i was woken by some profane and profoundly drunk people just outside my window stumbling home after the bar closed, and can't seem to get to sleep now for thinking out smutness.  
  
i wasn't going to let anyone but my lj readers see this, but...um...i feel bad for not posting the next chapter for so long...i suck...suckage is mine, saith the lord.

er.  yeah.  THIS CHAPTER IS SMUT.  SMUTTY SMUT SMUT.  !lemon warning!  all that stuff.     
  
SMUT ME BABY.  
  
* * *   
  
beginning roughly where chapter 8 of 'it all started with a potion gone wrong' ends...  
  
He dropped his wand again to drag his fingertips slowly from my knee up my inner thigh. I moaned, and was embarrassed at my wanton response even as I made the sound.  
  
_:Really, Harry, do you mind this? ...Because I don't. I want this. But not if you don't.:_  
  
I didn't even have to think about it. _:No. I don't mind. I want it. I've wanted it for a long, long time.:_  
  
He didn't hesitate any further. I barely had time to gasp as he began to demonstrate his ownership of my body.   
  
Hands on me. Places I'd never known existed burning with desire. Fingertips dancing over my skin. Shuddering breaths, muscles spasming with pleasure/pain/confusion.  
  
_:Have you ever done this before, love?:  
  
:No....:_ ...moan... _:...never...:  
  
:Good.:_ He slid atop me, the fabric of his clothing harsh against my sensitised skin. _:You're all mine.:  
  
:Yes...yours...:_  
  
He growled deep in the back of his throat, oddly incongruous with him, my idea of him, my knowledge of him and his frailty. Bites and suckling kisses along my ribcage, fingers playing with my nipples. Heavy breathing. Shudder.  
  
_:MINE.:  
  
:Oh yes...yours. Just don't...don't stop...:_ I knew I'd die if he stopped. Skin only alive under his fingers, just now awakening. I'd been asleep all my life.   
  
_:No...no stopping now...love you...want you...you're MINE. All mine now...say it for me, Harry...out loud.:_  
  
"I'm...yours..."  
  
_:Again. And say my name.:_ Fingers dug bruises into my hips, exquisitely painful.  
  
"Draco...ah! ...I'm...I'm yours..."  
  
_:Yessss.:_  
  
Licking me. Tongue flickers across my abdomen, teasing my nipples, long stroke up my side from waist to collarbone.   
  
Mouths melding wetly. Kiss you, oh yes, tongues twining and lips become something morethanhuman liquid pleasure. Pleasure.  
  
In a part of me I felt him feel my pleasure, my excitement. It ricocheted between us, magnifying itself. _:Oh, you *like* feeling me...oh gods...like this...:  
  
:Oh yes.:  
  
:I need...:  
  
:What do you need, lover?:_ Sucking bruises on my throat, a long drinkingme line of bruises down my torso, biting my pelvis. _:What?:  
  
:I need to...feel you...Draco...:  
  
:Oh yes. Say my name. Say it again.:  
  
:Draaaaco...:  
  
:Say it out loud.:_  
  
"Draco...." Breathy, achingly hard, needing him. Oh, needing him.  
  
_:That's it.:_ I could hear his breath catch in his throat. My hands tangled in his beautiful, silken fine hair. He pushed my hands down to my sides again. Clench them in the sheets. Mustn't disobey, no, can't keep still...  
  
_:Mmmn...love feeling you feeling me love you...:_ Twisting logic made perfect sense. Minds reflecting each other, me sensing him echo me responding to him in long shivers.  
  
At last he sat up, _:Nooo, where are you going? ...Oh...:_ and stripped his shirt off in one smooth motion. _:Mmm. Yes.:_ Out of bed then entirely. Pants go, ohhhhhhhhh yes...all of it. Get back here. Come and give me skin against skin.  
  
_:Oh gods!:_ No way to be prepared for this sensation, silk on silk on silk. Mindless pleasure, arching, take his mouth with kisses _yesssss._  
  
Need. I rolled him over easily. So slender body under mine. Hard... _:Ahh...you're liking this too, aren't you.:  
  
:Of course...why would I waste...my time...if I didn't?:  
  
:Shhh...:_ Suckle the tender skin of his throat, his shoulder. My hard cock throbbing against his, mutual arousals aligned perfectly. Don't dare move, oh no. Waiting for him to be disgusted, seize the moment before it's destroyed utterly, oh gods I've lost my mind.  
  
_:Never...disgusted...Harry...:_  
  
Roll my hips against him then, a test. His head thrown back gasping. _:Good..:_ I lay atop him and dragged fingertips down his sides. Clench fingers around his hips. Sooooo slender, firmly muscled, too perfect.   
  
His desire in my mind, mine in his, oh gods. Never felt arousal like this. Never.  
  
_:Lie back...I need to taste you...:_ Oh _gods_...roll back onto sheets, somehow transformed into something infinitely sensual and smooth against my skin but not there at all as his hand is touching me _touching me_ mouth working its way down my belly again. Tongue flickers teasingly into my navel. My hips twitch and fidget under him. Slender hands hold me still, stronger than I'd imagined.   
  
Mindless incoherency. _:Draco...don't leave me...:  
  
:No, not leaving you, never leaving you, lover...:_ Need and desire burning between us. Mine, his, both the same and more than the sum of the two. A fire that should be bringing the bed hangings down.   
  
Mouth on my hip, my thigh, oh gods encompassing me, wetly sucking down my cock, hand caressing my balls. I'm thrusting into his mouth shallowly, helplessly, calling out words I can't hear, _feeling him take me down his throat._ Feeling him suppress the need to gag willingly, loving having me in his mouth, in his throat. _Feeling him feeling me._  
  
_:Love...you...Draco...:  
  
:Ohhh...yes, Harry. Love me.:  
  
:Oh GODS yessssss...:_  
  
And I came with lights blazing behind my closed eyelids, body arched achingly, shattering, all of me spasming down out of my cock and into Draco's mouth, entire body existing only in his mouth but _sooooooooooo_ good, I've lost reality but at the same time feeling feeling him tasting me spurting into his throat tongue sliding around my hot cock even as I'm dissolving I'm losing   
  
me  
  
_:Oh Harry.:_ Licking a trail of slickness up my body. I shudder and gasp sideways into my pillow. Mingled thoughts awareness coherency all his but I get a bit.  
  
My limbs slowly stop trembling. Strange this completion with unfulfilled need as present as the satiation dripping in my veins. Kiss him. Kiss him and reach down and take his hard cock in my hand and stroke it while he hisses with pleasure into my throat.   
  
_:Love me Draco love me loving you:  
  
:yessss love you love you love me LOVE ME:_  
  
Taste myself in the back of my throat. Kiss his nipples, feel it as if it were myself being kissed, move downwards with his gasping in my ears fingers clutching at my shoulders, twisting themselves in my hair.  
  
Wrap my hands around his cock, so warm, throbbing in my grasp with a heartbeat familiar but _not mine_. Strangely arousing, that, the quickened pulse beneath my hands alien even as I felt the blood coursing through veins pulsing with desire _need_ completion _please._  
  
Move my hands in a rhythm completely new. Stroke up and down silky skin, lick a full drop of precome off of his velvety head, sweep my tongue around him while savouring his saltiness. Gasping under me.   
  
_:Love you love you oh gods!...:  
  
:Yes. Love me, feel me suckling you, feel me feeling you being sucked off.:_ Draco's pleasure flashing through his body and mine and back to his.   
  
Taste him, oh his taste...stop and bury my face in the join of thigh and groin. Smell his muskiness, silken hair brushing my cheeks, thick heavy scent in my nostrils and take his cock again, lick lushly up it and encompass it. Moaning and writhing under me.  
  
_:Come for me, Draco.:  
  
:Ohhhhh yes...:  
  
:Come for me now.:_ My hands and mouth move faster on his throbbing cock.  
  
_:Yesssss...:  
  
:Come for me NOW.:_   
  
He came, breath curling and rasping in his throat, spasming and spurting into my mouth in waves.  
  
I slithered moistly up his body again, took him still shuddering uncontrollably into my arms and kissed his hair. _:Love you, Draco. Love you.:_  
  
I expected no response; his limbs were still twitching and his breath heavy and irregular.  
  
_:Love you, Harry.:_


	14. chapter fourteen

The next several days were almost perfect. I spent my usual waking hours with Hermione and Ron, and my not-usual-waking hours with Draco. I usually ended up exhausted enough that I slept like the dead until the Early-Waking Charm woke me, and I hardly noticed the slighter amount of sleep I was getting. Every other day or so Draco and I pushed the boundaries of what everyone expected of our relationship, and the Gryffindors were becoming quite indifferent toward him overall, though we hadn't tried the Slytherins yet. Crabbe and Goyle remained lurking shadows behind Draco most times, and said nothing (although they grunted a bit more and snickered less, maybe because Draco was instigating less mayhem), and neither of us cared much for any other Slytherin's opinion just now.  
  
The link continued to strengthen infinitesimally. Both of us had given up on the idea of it going away, and avoided the subject completely. We had become entirely too comfortable with it being a constant presence in our minds, and even the hint of the thought of it fading into nothingness caused both of us to flinch in pain and apprehension. Friends were all well and good, lovers better, best friends better yet, lovers who were best friends best of all...until this. Just imagining going without it left the heart convulsing with loneliness and anguish.  
  
So we didn't imagine it.  
  
The routine became comfortable, normal. Weeks passed without our noticing, until finally we'd made even the Slytherins comfortable with seeing us laughing together, although more than half of them still believed it was a complicated plot of Draco's. We didn't mind. We spent some of the best evenings of my life with Ron and Hermione. Ron had slowly and grudgingly admitted that yes, it did indeed seem that Draco had changed his stripes to spots, unlikely as that seemed. Hermione'd believed it from the beginning anyway, and had only remained cautious as a 'just in case' sort of thing...she trusts my judgement about people, I'm not sure why. Or maybe I do know; I'm not good at understanding people at all, but so far I have been relatively good at detecting serious dishonesty, Quirrell and Barty Crouch (junior) excluded...not that they'd ever revealed their innermost selves to me... Okay, fine, in my more ego-inflated moments I could sort of understand why she trusted my judgement so, and the rest of the time I had no damned clue. Happy now?  
  
Anyway. After a few weeks of things getting nothing but better, I told Ron to go out flying without me, told Draco not to come over to our common room 'til I told him it was alright, and hauled Hermione away from her stacks of books.  
  
"What's up, Harry? And can you make it quick? I'm working on a really fascinating paper for Arithmancy, and I'd like to get back to it." She was still looking back at her pile of parchment and holding her quill like she was ready to start writing again at a moment's notice. I pulled the quill from her fingers and Banished it back across the room to her study area with a flick of my wand.  
  
"Um, this is important, 'Mione. Like, say, more than Arithmancy even, for now." That got her attention—finally.  
  
"Is everything okay?" Now she was concerned.  
  
"Yes, everything's fine, except I really need to talk to you about something." The time was right, perfect, even; the weather was fine, and few Gryffindors want to be inside on a warm spring evening. Not even me, to be honest, but this needed to be said now while I had the opportunity and she and I could have a bit of privacy. It was a sensitive subject, after all.  
  
She sat down on a couch—one of my favourite couches in the common room actually, an amazingly comfortable one most naturally upholstered in crimson velvet—and gave me all of her attention. "So. Sit down then and tell me about it, Harry."  
  
I sat, although part of me thought it would be better to be pacing, and examined my fingernails most intently instead. "Um, 'Mione, I...er..." ...lost steam. Tried again. "Um, about Draco and I." Lost it again.  
  
"Yes, I see you've become very good friends, and to be honest, I like him rather a lot myself lately. And? What is it? Relax, it can't be that bad." She, naturally, was completely at ease (despite the Arithmancy paper calling to her from across the room. Then again, she wasn't trying to broach the subject of Dracoandme. Lucky her.)  
  
"Well, er, no, it's not bad at all, except. Um, well, you should know that, I, Ilikehim." I stared at my thumbnail as if I'd never seen it before.  
  
"You like—you LIKE him."  
  
"And, er, he, helikesme."  
  
"And he likes you."  
  
"Er, yeah."  
  
"And we're not talking about liking as in, say, salads or Quidditch teams here."  
  
"Um, no. More like, er, like, um, liking...ah..."  
  
"Liking each other."  
  
"Right."  
  
"I always thought, well, that you liked...girls, Harry."  
  
"I, um, I did, or at least I thought I did, but I didn't like them anything like this."  
  
"Well, no, I'd expect not," she said dryly. "After all, all the bits to be liked are rather different."  
  
I tore my eyes from my (at this moment infinitely intriguing) hands and flicked a glance up at her. "This isn't meant to be funny, Hermione."  
  
"I'd gathered that, Harry, except it sort of is whether you meant it to be or not." She snickered. "I'm shocked it took you this long."  
  
That was—not what I'd expected. "What?" (Don't bother telling me I'm significantly less than eloquent. Draco tells me often enough, thank you very much.)  
  
She sort of hiccupped, then looked at me, then burst into gales of laughter. I had yet another occasion to curse my pale complexion. Honestly, before the last month or so, I'd never done so much damned blushing in my life. I was seriously tempted to punch her, or at least shove her off of the couch onto the floor, but I restrained myself somehow. "Could you possibly deign to tell me what exactly is SO FUCKING FUNNY?" I was significantly less than amused.  
  
"It's just that..." —laughing hysterically— "that" —still laughing— "you've taken so, so" —I wanted even more to smash her— "so damned LONG to figure this out, oh gods!" And she doubled over laughing until in the midst of wanting to smash her I began to wonder if she was able to breathe properly.  
  
"Harry, love, go do something you're good at, will you?" Draco's cool voice managed to startle me out of my reverie of wanting to smash Hermione (my fists had clenched themselves without my realising) and I stared up at him, not having even noticed him coming in. He half-smiled at me and flicked his lovely blond head towards the doorway. I blinked, blinked again, then got up and stalked out of the common room, still blinking.  
  
I distinctly recalled telling him to stay away until I told him to come back, but on third- and fourth-thought I concluded that he'd been right to instead come over as soon as he possibly could, because after all I had been doing something I'm particularly NOT good at, and he was infinitely better at it, and...oh bother.  
  
So I went flying with Ron.  
  
Draco and Hermione met us on our way back from the pitch, just as the sun's last sliver was sinking lost and sadly into the Forbidden Forest. Scattered here and there across the grounds groups of students tried to pretend it wasn't getting dark. Winter really does last a bit too long every year, I say.  
  
Ron had just started to tell Hermione excitedly about the Sloth Grip Roll he'd managed today (he's always fallen off before) when Draco stepped forward, wrapped me in his arms, and kissed me deeply before I had a chance to even wonder exactly what the HELL he was doing.  
  
Ron and I reacted roughly the same way, which involved mostly standing shock-still with gaping jaw. Hermione seized Ron firmly by the arm and headed back to the castle with him in tow, still staring slack-jawed at us over his shoulder. Draco casually slung one arm around my shoulders and grinned at me. "Hermione'll take it from here," he said quietly.  
  
"Oh will she now." Most of the near groups of students had seen it all and were whispering madly to each other. I felt more pointed at than on my first trip through Diagon Alley. "And you have, I'm sure, an excellent excuse for not telling me what the fuck you had in mind ahead of time."  
  
"Of course I do. Although it's a reason, not an excuse. A Malfoy never makes excuses." He finally turned and looked at me. :You'd never have done it properly, else. You'd have been all self-conscious, and Ron would have noticed and asked you why, and you'd have either told him—and buggered it up—or not, making him suspicious, and buggered it up. And then, of course, Hermione would wonder why you'd known what was going to happen, since even she didn't know quite what I had in mind.:  
  
:And this makes up for making a fool of me how, exactly?:  
  
:Like this.: And he seized me and kissed me again until I forgot I was furious and kissed him back and when I came to myself we were the centre of a huge circle of stares.  
  
:They were all going to know eventually, Harry. It might as well be now.: And twining his slim fingers with mine, holding me firmly at his side, he sauntered away, threading between them all as though they weren't there, were completely insignificant to him, with the grace and carriage of an emperor.  
  
:I...I suppose you're right.: Though I still didn't like not being consulted, part of me had to admire him for the ease and arrogance he handled all this with, and I knew that if I'd been forewarned I really would have made all of it far more awkward. Being awkward is one of my specialties, after all, though I'm still secretly hoping it's one I'll grow out of.  
  
:Of course I am. Your room or mine? Being so incredibly right in front of what will in an hour or two amount to the whole school has made me very...: He looked me over with a sideways, sultry under-the-lashes glance. :...pleased with myself.:  
  
I laughed despite myself. :Oh, by all means then, let me add to your pleasure.:  
  
:That WAS the idea. And likewise.:  
  
:Mmmn, I love it when you talk to me like that.:  
  
:Good, for I've no intention of stopping. OR of leaving it at talking.:  
  
:Now, now, we've got a ways to go, and if you keep this up I'll be tearing your robes off here in front of everyone. Raging teenage hormones and all that. Mmmmmmn: Evil thoughts I couldn't suppress.  
  
:Oh, in THAT case...: He flashed one of his brilliant smiles at me, and as one, we broke into a run.  
  
After all, the broomshed was closer. 


	15. chapter fifteen

Having Draco for a mindmate, I mused, was a lot like having the perfect roommate.  The sort that you could almost forget existed until they came home, never intrusive, never overbearing, never using every dish in the house and leaving them in a stack in the sink for weeks until you finally broke down and washed the bloody things yourself.   The sort that would walk in the door at the end of a long hard day and sit in the living room with you, chatting idly about your respective days and listening to good music, maybe getting a little drunk together, until you ended up discussing the meaning of life and why exactly Love & Rockets broke up anyway, those damned arsehole bastards.  

Then, after laughing for hours, maybe sometimes getting a little stoned, entirely comfortable with each other,  incredible sex.  Except, I remind myself, I'm talking about roommates here, and incredible sex and roommates don't really go together, so nevermind that bit.

Yes.  The perfect roommate.  Never messy, never intrusive, never there when you didn't want him, but always there when you didn't know you wanted him.

"Draco."  

We enjoyed speaking aloud most of the time anymore...maybe because we _could.  No one remarked much about seeing us together anymore;  it had become the norm.  And I loved to hear his voice.  My own sounded strange in my ears, but his flowed into me like music.   We saved our silent communication for private moments, a most private kind of speech reserved for times when it was necessary or absolutely uninterrupted.  And best of all, speaking aloud kept the link secret._

He dragged his eyes lazily to mine.  "Yes?"

"Run away with me."

One pale eyebrow raised itself impossibly high, the other eye squinted.  "What the hell are you talking about?"

I looked at him and doubled over laughing.  "Oh, _gods!"  Then started singing GIR's doom song. __DoomdoomdoomDOOMYdoomdoomyDOOMdoomdoomDOOMYdoomdoom.  Draco's expression looked __exactly like Zim, minus the purple eyes, antennae, and green skin, of course._

Now he was just scowling.  "You've lost your mind.  Completely barking mad.  I should have known this would happen eventually."  He rose to his feet, still scowling.  "I'm getting a bucket of water."

I seized his hand before he could get more than a step away.  "I'm-" -snicker- "-sorry.  You just had a-"  -snicker- "-a Jhonen Vasquez moment."  Snicker.

Draco's never liked being made a fool of.  He was still scowling at me.  "You've got precisely 30 seconds to start making sense again, Harry."

"Remind me to show you a graphic novel sometime.  And a television.  Nevermind.  Sit down."   Draco kept scowling at me for a moment, then finally sat down. "And stop scowling.  It doesn't become you."

"_Everything becomes me, Harry.  You forget I'm a beautiful young Adonis."_

"Oh, I could never forget that-" -and indeed I couldn't- "-but believe me, you look much more lovely when you're not scowling."

He smirked.  "Good enough."

"Run away with me."

"Where?  Why?  From what?  I repeat, what the hell are you talking about?"  

"Anywhere.  I don't know.  Away from everything, everyone, just...go.  Just us.    Somewhere.  Greece.  Let's go to Greece first.  Forget everything else in the world.  I don't know."  I realised how stupid this all sounded now, and wished I'd kept thinking idly to myself instead of breaking the silence with my idiocy.

Draco stared at me.  

"Um, nevermind.  Haven't we got some homework to do or something?"  I snagged my bag from the side of the couch and started rifling through it. 

Draco seized my hand and shoved my bag onto the floor.  My inkwell went rolling across the room and parchments cascaded onto the floor, but before I could protest he'd laid one slim finger across my lips.  "Harry, that is absolutely the best, most thrilling, sweetest suggestion ever made.  Except we sort of _do have school just now.  And as much as I'd love to run away with you and forget everything, I think it'd be best if we, you know, graduated first."_

I sighed.  "I know.  It was a stupid thing to say."

"No!  It was not stupid.  It was..."  His cheeks flushed with a rare, soft pink as he looked down.  "It was...wonderful.  Just not possible...yet."   I blinked, and he smiled shyly,  looking up at me through strands of _shiningpaleblond with those beautiful silver eyes.  "But I'll make it up to you, if you'll let me."_

I couldn't breathe for a moment, but several seconds later managed, "I'll...of course I'll let you.   _Let you.  Heh."_

"Shh.  Or you'll ruin the moment."

I shut up.

*  *  *

There was a Quidditch match coming this Saturday.

Ravenclaw versus Slytherin.  Nothing of terrible interest to me, most times;  I actually don't even _go to most Quidditch matches that don't involve me;  why watch inferior players mess things up when I could be doing something else?  No need to learn bad habits, or waste my time.  Sometimes I went, but not very often.  Hermione and Ron went to every match, fascinated and enthralled by all of them and just particularly fired up by the ones Gryffindor participated in, but I'd rather watch playbacks of professional matches than see unprofessional matches in person.  And my performance seemed to show that I'd been choosing correctly, considering I hadn't lost a game-not even come close to it, in fact-since third year, which I could blame on the Dementors.  I knew that was an arrogant attitude, but I also knew I was good enough that none of my Hogwarts classmates could teach me anything new.  And watching mistakes only makes me more likely to make a mistake myself._

On the other hand, Draco had to play this match.  And even if I wasn't watching I'd be there.

"Harry."

"I know."

"I've hardly practised since this...started."

"I know."

"Swear to me you won't 'speak to me during the game."

"...What?"

"I don't want you helping me.  At all.  Swear to me you won't talk to me until the game's over.  Swear it to me, Harry."

I didn't quite know what to say for a bit.  I'd never sworn a real oath to Draco before.  Let alone committed myself to keeping out of his head for an extended period of time, which I doubted I could actually fully do anyway.  

"I.  I, er.  I'll...do my best.  I can't _promise anything, Draco, you know that...I've never been able to keep anything from you so far."_

"I'm asking you to now, Harry.  I don't want any unfair advantages.  No _help, you understand me, Potter?  I need to win this match on my own."_

That 'Potter' hurt me more than I'd imagined.  Impersonal, like there'd been nothing between us.  I understood his need to stand apart, his need to feel alone on this one, to fight the good fight and accept no possibility of cheating, was quietly surprised that he had honour enough to need this.  But it still hurt.  

"I...understand.  I'll do my best.  I swear."  He gazed into my eyes for what felt like a long, long time, then nodded.  

"Good enough."

*  *  *

I couldn't decide whether to go to the game or not.  If I watched, I'd have immediate knowledge about the game that could help Draco win, just by seeing what he might not be able to at that moment.  Staying away seemed much safer;  I'd not even have to worry much about 'speaking him, since I wouldn't know anything of importance.  

But Ron and Hermione, and for that matter the rest of the school now, wouldn't understand me not being there to watch him play.

I agonised silently, pacing the empty Potions classroom for an hour, until Snape came back and threw me out suspiciously.  It didn't matter by that time.  I'd come to my conclusion.  I had to be there.

We didn't need the questions.  I couldn't lie convincingly.  And I couldn't bear having to.  I'd simply have to enforce discipline on my mind like I'd never done before.

Simply.  My mouth twisted bitterly.  So simple, oh yes.  Right.

*  *  *

I tried keeping Draco out of my head that night.  He'd gone to the Slytherin common room instead of Gryffindor's, sensing my intention in double Potions and complying silently.  I sat and tried to block him out.  It was like flexing muscles I'd never used before, strange, difficult, barely effectual and strangely painful.  I tried blanking my mind entirely, to no avail.  Finally I seized upon a distraction and listened to a couple of third-years arguing with most of my mind, and thought to myself under that.   It seemed to work.  Those mental ―muscles― still ached with the effort, but I could feel what was leaking to him and what wasn't...and my muted train of thought wasn't.  I stopped both distraction and undercurrent and touched his mind (he let me in as if he knew I'd be trying, as indeed I suspect he did) and found that _yes, he'd heard the noise but not the real content.  Excellent!  I had succeeded._

But could I maintain that throughout an entire Quidditch match?  With no distraction to cover my real thoughts?  My brain hurt at the very thought of it, like contemplating carrying something immensely heavy for miles.

I would have to.  I'd given my word.

_Draco felt warm in me as I reached this resolution._

I blocked him out.

I didn't _want to shut him away from me.  I didn't __want to keep him out.  But I slammed my mental doors in his face ruthlessly, fighting for control, practising feverishly in the hopes that I could maintain a leak-free block for as long as it took tomorrow.  As long as a Quidditch game could last...which could be hours, days, minutes;  there was no telling.  It __hurt to keep him out, took constant focus, but I got stronger and better at it with each hour of pain that passed.  Bits and flashes of him slipped through in my weaker moments;  I could feel his pain and hurt that I'd shut him out so abruptly, so coldly.  _

As much as it hurt me, I refused to let him sense my regret, feel my apology.  Emotional distance between us would only aid my silence the following day.  I whipped the painful distance I'd once felt for him into new heights of resentment, nurtured a coldness in myself I'd almost forgotten I'd ever felt for him and threw it to the forefront of my mind when I faltered in my blocking.  I felt him become icy and stiff as the evening went on.  I mourned for it, and longed desperately for the game to just be _over already so I could dispel this hostility and pain between us, wipe it aside with an impatient wave of my hand and kiss him and melt into the warmth of his mouth, his body..._

But tomorrow wasn't here yet and I kept on shutting him out.

The night was agonisingly long.  And lonely.

*  *  *

Saturday was clear and cold.  Sweaters were covered by black cloaks.  The stadium seemed filled by the non-selective, whatever colours they did wear hidden by their cloaks, except for the many banners the audience held.  Overall the banners were blue, though there were a few green interspersed within the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor sections.  A scant fourth of the audience wore green in defiance of the weather and held up Slytherin banners and flags. 

Part of me felt I should be holding a Slytherin flag myself.  The rest of me knew I was watching an opponent and should be looking for weakness, _praying to see weakness, hoping Slytherin would lose and the Cup not be a serious concern._

_Oh gods I'm such a hypocrite._

I'd have to stand on my own ability then, when Gryffindor battled with Slytherin for the Cup as had become the norm since I'd become Gryffindor's Seeker.  But then wasn't now.  Now all I had to do was watch a game without 'touching Draco.  Shut him out.  I could do that.  I had to do that.  I sat very very still and concentrated on keeping him blocked out.

Madam Hooch's whistle blew and they were up, Draco soaring away from Cho in a lazy spiral, head swivelling from side to side as he scanned the pitch.  I was blind to the other players, deaf to Dean Thomas' commentary, all my attention fixed on shutting Draco out while I watched him fly as I never had before.

He flew beautifully.  Graceful, light and swift in the air as though he weighed nothing―which was relatively true, my hindbrain reminded me, flashing up images of making love to him and rousing me madly until I shoved them away violently.  He whipped through the air on his broomstick liquidly, easily avoiding Bludgers and other players, eyes flicking everywhere all at once.  I knew intellectually that he wasn't flying his best, he'd been out of practise and beating against my new wall against him was his raging hurt and anger distracting him, taking the edge of his ability off, but I felt like I'd never seen him fly before-he was so damned _beautiful up there._

Every fibre in my body wanted to seize my Firebolt and just fly up and _take him.  __Take him.   Oh yesssss._

Hermione seized my knee with one hand, completely intent on the game, and I spasmed violently feeling like she'd hit me with a tazer.  Snap my mind back to my body rather than wander lost in fantasy...  

I saw instantly why Hermione'd grabbed me―Cho had spun around and was leaning into an arrow-sharp angle upward, intent on the Snitch-

Draco'd seen her―he moved like a hawk set for the kill, flying faster and eyes narrowed with target in sight―

Cho strained, hand reaching, fingers stretching for the Snitch―

And Draco snatched it a fragment of a second before she could reach it.  He levelled out and looked back at her, still shocked and fixed on the abruptly ended moment, and when her dazed eyes met his gave her a civil nod.  Then he spiralled lazily down to the pitch, where the blue- and black-clad were filing off the benches and back to the castle and the green Slytherin supporters were rejoicing on the grass.

The game had only lasted 15 minutes.  It had felt like forever to me.  I leapt from bench to bench, hands unclenching finally, intent on reaching him and wrapping my arms around him and _so proud._

Finally I reached the pitch (_when did the stands become so damned tall?) and shoved my way through the crowd, green-shouldered Slytherin fans waving banners and clustering __in my fucking way get OUT of the way DAMN you!  I elbowed and slid through gaps between shouting fans and forced my way through the chaos ignoring doubletakes and sometimes not-so-inadvertent elbows to the gut must get to the Slytherin team at the centre of the shouting madness until_

there he was

and I stared at him, grinning madly, so _proud of him._

"What are you doing here, Potter?"  His eyes and voice were cold, _so cold._

My heart withered inside me and sank into my guts like a stone but I continued even as I felt my grin fade to nothing on my face.  "Congratulating you.  Hoping to celebrate with you."

He was all ice and granite in my mind, a wall slammed up in my face just when I'd most wanted to reach him.

"I didn't think you were a Slytherin supporter.  Potter."  He was still looking at me with disdaining, freezingly chill (_infinitely lovely) grey eyes fixed on mine._

I hurt, bleeding freely inside for a single untouched moment while Slytherins jumped and shouted around us unmoving in their chaos before I seized him by the arm and pulled him unwilling through the crowd away to privacy.  He fought me at first but then came quietly, if not willingly.  The Slytherins around us goggled and some tried to seize his other arm, but he shoved them away and followed me awkwardly.  The strip of the crowd we'd pushed through stared after us as I dragged him stumbling across empty trampled pitch-fringe and pulled him into the quiet shadows under the stands.  I shoved him up against a supporting post.  Bits of parchment, sweets wrappings, the detritus of a screaming crowd swirled around our feet.

I spoke first, angry and hurt.  "You made me swear not to 'touch you, damn your eyes."

"You shoved your revulsion and disgust in my face, you fucking bastard.  I know it's there.  Don't even try to lie to me."

My fingers tightened on his shoulders, bruising and not sorry in the least.  "How the fuck else was I supposed to shut you out?  Just tell myself 'Don't think of Draco'?  What the fuck did you _think I was going to have to do?  Of course I fixed on what I __used to feel about you.  I used whatever I had to to block you off.  Because I swore an oath to you, you fucking unappreciative arsehole."  _

"You seemed to _like it.  You flung nastiness at me all god-damned night and morning.  Go ahead, tell me you don't __feel what you rubbed my nose in.  Go ahead!  Go ahead and lie to me!"  His lip curled and he glared at me with hatred in his eyes and more pain smeared across his face than I'd ever seen on him.  My heart broke through my fury._

"I fucking _told you, I resorted to using what I felt about you __before, before we knew each other, before the fucking __potion, I used anything I damned well could scrape up to keep you the fuck __out of my head, at __your insistence, I fought tooth and nail to shut you out so that I couldn't inadvertently slip you clues during THIS FUCKING QUIDDITCH MATCH, and now you're bitching at me and all hateful and blaming me, you hypocritical ARSE!"_

I glared at him, panting, hands clenched painfully tight on his shoulders, enraged by his lack of appreciation and wanting _so desperately to just __kiss him already.  But I couldn't._

We stared at each other, fierce grey intensity crashing against my own raging green resentment how_ dare he not appreciate what I'd done for him! _

He broke.

"It was―what you―_used...to feel?"  The ice behind his eyes melted and fractured and he was vulnerable again, so achingly vulnerable._

_:Yes.  I USED to feel that way about you.  I don't now.  I love you.  I LOVE you.  I swore an oath to you, I did what I had to I dredged up everything all the spite and resentment from even first year to keep that oath even though it HURT, it hurt me and I knew it would hurt YOU, and I did it anyway because it was the only way I could do what I'd fucking PROMISED you that I'd do and oh Draco it was so LONELY and I miss you so and all I want to do is swing you around madly singing gladly for your winning but you don't UNDERSTAND and it HURTS.:_

_:I...:_

_:Fuck you.:_

_:It...it HURT Harry you hurt me I expected you to leave a blankness in my mind but you ground this antagonism and resentment into me where I was most vulnerable because I LOVE you and it HURT and I hate you for it but now you say it was all because you couldn't stop sending me things without it and I want to believe you but.:_

I clenched my eyes shut for a long moment, then swallowed what was left of my pride (being telepathically linked with someone isn't at all conducive to maintaining an idealistic concept of dignity) and clenched my hands even tighter on his slender shoulders and tried to look him in the eye.  His silver eyes looked down at his feet, at my feet, sideways at a piece of rubbish, anywhere but into mine.  I brushed his _(so pale-white surely this mooncolour isn't normal for humans) blond hair away from his eyes and insisted on eye-to-eye contact._

Finally he met my eyes.  I saw tears brimming in his eyes and wished fiercely  that I could destroy anything that had ever caused this pain in him.  Even if it was myself.  Even then.  

_:You did this because you promised me something, even though you knew it would hurt us both?  Because you'd promised me, knowing the cost?:_

_:Yes.:_

_:Just to fulfil a promise you'd made me?:_

_:Yes.:_

_:Damn you.  I love you.  I hate you sometimes, I really do Harry, you're so FUCKING noble and whatnot and that makes me ill and look now look what's happening now it's all your fault you fucking Gryffindor bastard I hate you.:  _

_:I know.:_

His mouth twisted and the tears overflowed and I wrapped him in my arms and loved him with every fibre in my body.

_:I love you, Draco.  Congratulations.  The game was wonderful.:_

_:I hate you Harry I love you thank you you're such an arse.:_

_:I know.  Shut up and love me already.:_


	16. chapter sixteen

So.  The school knew we were gay.  Not only gay, but _with each other_.  The all-important Quidditch match was over, and everyone had time to try to wrap their heads around this mind-boggling development.  Our burgeoning friendship had been one thing, shocking and all, but…this!  This was _real_ news.  Better gossip than the whole Heir of Slytherin bit, even.

Draco and I did a lot of rolling our eyes and sighing exasperatedly in the next couple of weeks.

Draco was lucky.  He didn't have to explain a damned thing to anyone.  Everyone was _used _to Slytherins keeping silent about the reasons behind their actions.  I, on the other hand, had to argue and defend myself a lot.  

The Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws mostly goggled and/or laughed.  The Slytherins seemed split between glaring at me for corrupting Draco and congratulating him for corrupting a Gryffindor.  The Gryffindors moaned incessantly about losing me to lurve, and not just sappy lurve, but a Slytherin scumbag, to boot.  The only thing they couldn't wail about was my physical taste.  Draco _was_ my tie for Most Snoggable Boy At Hogwarts, after all.

The Idiot Duo (Crabbe and Goyle, in case you hadn't guessed) didn't react at all.  It was actually somewhat disappointing, but in all honesty not surprising.  They were just as willing to follow Draco's leadership on the rare occasions he bothered anymore as they'd ever been.  I surmised that they were indeed that desperate for some kind of leadership, so much so that they didn't care what their leader did on his off-time.  Well, so much for their reaction.  All they had worth noticing was a LACK of reaction.  For a long moment, I actually felt sorry for them.  Then again, they were best known for their utter lack of intelligent thought, and to a certain extent I envied that lack of awareness, so…

Ron sunk into a very boring depression, sporadically coming out of it in sputtering bursts of disbelief.  Hermione snickered and calmed him down every time.  I made a point not to snog Draco anywhere near Ron, not wanting to fracture his fragile psyche.  Hermione, on the other hand, watched us almost tenderly.  I reminded myself to ask her why exactly she seemed to find the idea of Malfoy and I so appealing and acceptable.  Perhaps she had a fixation on pretty gay boys?  Hmm.

No one, to my mild surprise, had any kind of difficulty that we were both MALE.  Boy on boy.  Gay.  All that.  The wizarding world, it seemed, cared as much about sexual preference as it did about  religion―that is, not at all.  People did what they wanted, and that was that.  So there was one obstacle I'd feared gone.   The entire school was shocked to hear of our involvement, but it was simply because it was _me_, Harry Potter, with _him_, my arch-nemesis, Draco Malfoy.  We shrugged all this off.

What *I* found most interesting was the teachers' reactions.

McGonagall shook her head disappointedly at me every time she saw me.  Dumbledore looked smug as a just-fed cat lolling before a fire, Trelawney tried to say she'd predicted it all along, Binns never noticed―and why would he, he was fucking _dead._  Flitwick beamed more than usual, even, but vaguely and not really at me or Draco specifically.  Draco speculated that he was just high on a few too many after-class Cheering Charms.  Vector (Draco was taking Arithmancy) nodded approvingly at him and observed that it was the most logical and effective solution to our altercations.  Sprout seemed to smile at me and stroke random leaves indulgently a bit more frequently than she had before.  Perhaps it was the lurve.  Perhaps not.

Hagrid grinned and clapped me on the shoulder when I first saw him after he'd heard, poured me a congratulatory 'You're in lurve!' glass of that horrid flask-liquor he always drinks, insisted that I actually _swallow_ some, then asked me in what he apparently thought was a whisper why I didn't find someone just a little better, say, someone who liked animals, hippogriffs, for example.  I explained how Draco had improved for the better part of an hour, then gave up when I realised that Hagrid was drunk enough that the only thing keeping his one-eyed attention was the grain of the table, and that 'swallow' he'd forced down me had made me significantly less than coherent and significantly more than verbose anyway.  We both scratched Fang for a while, and after Hagrid started sobbing about how far away Olympe was and that Norbert never wrote, I excused myself and staggered back to the Gryffindor dormitory.  My hangover the next day was EXCRUCIATING.

But the most interesting, by far, was Snape.

He showed no intimation of knowing anything until our next double Potions class, the following Wednesday.  By this point everyone else had heard the news and established a reaction;  we were growing used to dealing with all of them.  But Snape…Snape had revealed nothing.  

Even Draco was anxious about facing Snape, and in the interest of minimising potential trouble, we stayed away from each other and worked on our own.  I felt bad for him, but if we worked together, we'd be just _asking_ for Snape-trouble.

Well, we didn't have to ask for it.   

But it didn't come in the shape we'd anticipated.

We'd all arrived early, just to make absolutely sure Snape would have no real tangible reason to start trouble.  And trouble there would be;  it was looming on the horizon like the darkest-ever thundercloud.  We had our ingredients laid out neatly, our notebooks and inkpots, quills poised to take notes.

And then he came in, robes storming around his ankles.  His eyes were lit with something strange that I couldn't identify.

My heart sank into my shoes.

"Turn your homework in, class."  The look on Snape's face implied that those who didn't have the homework should simply spontaneously combust rather than have him deal with them.  Everyone shuffled up to his desk.  I sent mine with Hermione, rather than risk physical proximity.  Far too soon, all the scrolls were piled on Snape's desk.

"You know your assignment.  Get started."  And we did, eagerly.  Snape stayed at his desk for all of ten minutes before stalking through the class, straight to Draco.

:Watch out, Draco.:

:You think you need to TELL me?!?:  

But it was too late.  

Ron and Hermione were working together;  Draco and I were working alone at our own cauldrons, not just because we wanted to avoid the wrath of Snape, but because today's potion was dangerous—a Dissolution potion, accelerating the decaying breakdown of any biological form—and required two or fewer people making it to minimise the chances of error.  And Snape slid directly to Draco's side, despite the fact that Neville did indeed NOT know what his assignment was, and was aimlessly fumbling through his ingredients while trying his ineffectual best not to look like he was paging through his textbook desperately.  

"So.  Another generation of Malfoys dating Potters."

Draco stared at him.  "My father and…James…Potter?"

"No, actually.  Lily Evans―but still, a Potter-to-be.  The continuity has some interesting kinks, but it's a sort of continuity nonetheless."  Fortunately I strangled on my own tongue before I could make any noise.  Draco's eyes got even bigger than they had been before.

Through the shock, I noticed that the most frightening thing was happening:  Snape was smiling.

"Sir…?"

"Congratulations on your conquest, young Malfoy."  Draco's jaw dropped.  "Come now, surely you didn't think I would disapprove?  The best student of my House has captured the affections of the most well-known young wizard in the world.  Well done, I say."

"Sir, you're scaring me."

Snape clapped Draco on the shoulder.  "Back to your potion, Mr. Malfoy."  And he walked back to his desk, a faint smile still lurking around the corners of his mouth.

I managed to scrape my jaw off of the floor by about dinnertime.

*  *  *

Well, the school knew, the teachers knew, and it was more than time to let Draco's parents know before they found out from alternate sources.  I gave Draco the privacy of his own mind and took mine elsewhere while he wrote the letter to his parents.  It took him hours.  Afterwards, we played Gobstones with Ron, Colin and Dennis to take his mind off of it.  We both went to bed relaxed and slept relatively well.

The next morning (those Malfoy owls are trained to be QUICK about their duties), Draco was pulled out of Arithmancy to talk to his father.  In my own class, I noticed his anxiety while on his way to see Lucius, excused myself (supposedly to the toilets) from Charms and followed my sense of him to a sitting room on the second floor.  Draco knew shortcuts to the room I'd never looked for;  I figured that he'd met his father there before.  Anyway, I reached it several minutes after he'd already entered and begun talking to Lucius.  I waited outside the door and listened in shamelessly (both by pressing my ear against the door and tuning into Draco's awareness) with my wand ready…just in case. 

"You will end this immediately, do you hear me?  Immediately.  You've shamed me enough already."  Lucius paused when Draco shook his head slowly, eyes on the floor. "Oh, I think you _will._  I _OWN_ you, Draco, and you WILL obey me.  …I _created_ you.  You owe your very _existence_ to me, and you WILL obey me,"  Lucius hissed.

Draco stared at the floor for a moment before deliberately smiling thinly at his father.  "Mother had something to do with it, as well."

Lucius backhanded Draco to the floor.

"Your insolence will not be tolerated, _Draco_.  Stand up.  Now."

Something in Draco ignited.  He shot up to his feet, nose inches from his father, whose eyes betrayed him with a flicker of startlement.

"I love you, and I respect you, Father, but I will not obey you."  He stepped back a pace, yielding the battle his closeness had tacitly begun. But it was no good.

Lucius lashed out, and smashed his fist into Draco's jaw.  Draco stumbled backwards and nearly fell, but somehow managed to pull himself upright to face his father yet again.

"Don't push me, boy,"  Lucius snarled.  "Adolescent rebellion will get you precisely nowhere with me, whatever effect it may have on your teachers."

"Father, I respect your authority.  But I cannot obey you in this matter."  Draco's voice was cool, respectful.  "I'm sorry."  Lucius backhanded him again, then pulled out his wand as Draco staggered.  Draco recovered and watched him calmly, nose bleeding, cheek and jaw swelling purple.

It was at this point that I decided I'd had enough.  I burst through the door, wand in hand.  Lucius paused, taken aback, giving me enough time to stride across the room and place myself between he and Draco.

"Mr. Malfoy, how pleasant to see you again after all these years.  Is your lovely wife well?"

:Oh, well played, Harry.:

Lucius rallied and managed to sound nearly normal as he replied automatically to the social niceties.  "Quite well, Mr. Potter.  If you would be so kind as to excuse us, my son and I are having a discussion."

"Sir, as this discussion concerns me, I would prefer to stay.  Shall we sit down and continue this over drinks?"

His eyes narrowed.  "I think not, Mr. Potter.  I must insist on privacy."

"I apologise, Mr. Malfoy, but I really must insist on staying."  _:Are you alright, love?:_

_:Don't worry, I'll be fine.  He's given me far worse before.  An icepack or two should do me nicely.  But unless you want this to escalate, you really should leave.  I'll be fine, I promise.:_

_:I'm not leaving so he can keep bullying you.  It's gone too far already.:_

Lucius' cheeks were blotched with red.  Quite unattractive, I noted idly.  "Potter," he hissed, "this is a family affair.  You have no place here."  His knuckles were white on his wand.

"On the contrary, Mr. Malfoy, it is precisely because it is a family affair that I DO have a place here, as I now consider myself a part of Draco's family."  The effort of maintaining the chill, polite veneer over my fury was beginning to wear on me.  Besides, I felt like a prat talking like this.  "I would prefer to have this discussion in a civilised fashion.  Can we agree to put our wands away, at least?"  Draco, slightly behind me, held perfectly still and kept his eyes on his father over my shoulder even though a thick trickle of blood was running from his nose and dripping off of his sharply-defined jawline.

"You will _never_ be a part of my family, Potter.  NEVER.  Do you understand me?  Your involvement with my son is OVER.  You will go now.  NOW."  His eyes blazed at me, more frighteningly intense than Draco's ever had been.  

But mine matched his unflinchingly.  "I will not, Lucius, and I'm afraid the decision is up to Draco and I, not you.  You are his father, but you are not his master.  Nor mine.  And I must warn you—" –as his teeth bared and he raised his wand again— "—I am not defenceless, and I will not allow you to harm Draco any more than you have already.  If you can't speak rationally, I suggest you leave.  Now.  Before I have you put out."  I raised my own wand.

I had never seen rage like what washed across Lucius' face then, and I hope never to again.  He swelled and shook with it, and for a split second I was afraid that it would spill from his eyes like acid and burn us.  But after a moment his eyes flicked from mine to Draco's, and he spat, "This is far from over, Draco.  We will continue this conversation later, have no doubt."  And he spun on his heel and stormed out of the room, slamming the door so hard it cracked the frame.

After the reverberations finally faded Draco broke from our frozen stillness and coughed a little, reaching up to wipe away the blood that was dripping from his chin steadily.  I spun around, reaching for him, but he smiled weakly and waved me away while pulling out a handkerchief and pressing it to his nose.  "Will you ever get tired of playing the knight-in-shining-armour, Harry?" he asked, voice muffled through the blood-stained cloth.

"I got tired of it years ago.  It just keeps being necessary."  I seized him by one arm and steered him firmly to a chair.  "Are you okay?  Really?  We should get you to Madam Pomfrey's."

"I'll be _fine_.  Just—I just need some ice, that's all.  A lot of ice."  He tipped his head back and pinched his nose as he sat down.

"Maybe I don't want to be sleeping with a mass of bruises for the next several days," I said dryly.  "Purple and yellow are fine colours when they're not smeared across your face.   They don't suit you. You're going to Madam Pomfrey's."

He chuckled a little, swallowing blood.  "I knew you were only with me for my looks."

I closed my eyes, then knelt and flung my arms around him, pressing my face into his chest.  _:I couldn't bear him hurting you like that.:  _In the back of my head a steady stream of curses was boiling.  _:Don't ever let him touch you again, Draco.  I won't ever let him.:_

One of Draco's hands fell to my hair, and I didn't even care that it was bloodsmeared.  _:I know you won't, Harry.  It's not as bad as it looks, truly.  I'll be FINE.  It's been worse before by far.  That was relatively calm for him, really, it wasn't that bad.  I swear.:_

_:I don't care.  I want to kill him.:_

_:Yes, well, we all feel like that sometimes.:_

A thought struck me.  _:Draco, does he ever do that—this—to your mother?  Has he done this to you for your entire life?:_

Draco actually laughed.  _:He would never dare touch my mother;  she'd tear his viscera out through his nostrils.  And if he ever REALLY hurt me, she'd do the same.  He's done this, as you call it, off and on throughout my life, yes.  Never anything really harmful, though.  Just knocked me around some.  It's not that big a deal, really.  The one time he lost control and REALLY  hurt me my mother blazed in like a firedrake.:_

_:But why didn't she stop it all then.  Why hasn't she just stopped it all.:_

_:Harry, Harry.  You're so naïve, love.  This is part of being an aristocrat.  Part of the pureblood training to be a strong leader, a loyal obedient follower,  have a stiff upper lip and all that.  If he never hit me, he'd be condemned by his peers for a weakling with no understanding of proper discipline, and I'd end up impossibly spoiled and become a useless, weakling pawn in the arrangement of underground power.  Like, more so than I already am, even.  And Harry, I know this is hard for you to believe, but he really does love me.  And I really do love him.  I understand why he does it.  It's not because he likes it, truly.:_

_:Draco, your family is severely fucked up.:_

Draco sighed.  _:What do you expect from Death Eaters? If I couldn't survive my father's discipline, I'd never survive as a Death Eater.  The Dark Lord's discipline is much, MUCH fiercer, and not the tiniest bit as forgiving.  What just happened was like being tapped by someone wearing silk gloves compared to what real Death Eaters deal with.:_

I shuddered, remembering Wormtail slicing off his own hand.  _:I know.  But you're not going to be a Death Eater.:_  I said it with perfect confidence.

:Of course I'm not.  But my father didn't know that when I was young, did he now?  He followed the appropriate standards and prepared me the best he could for the world, training me up right, as he would put it.  Or rather as some of his colleagues would put it;  my father's never that coarse.  Nor does he use incorrect grammar.:  

_:I love you, Draco.  How ever did you manage to end up only SOMEWHAT  twisted?:_

He laughed again.  _:Well, you showed up and got in the way of my training.:_

_:Thank god.:_

_:Shush.  You're far more traumatised about this than I am, really, Harry.  I think it's YOU that needs to get to Madam Pomfrey.  Eat some chocolate or something, drink a Calmative Draught.  Let's go before you get as hysterical as a pre-teen girl at a boy band concert.:_

_:Oh shut up.:_

We rose, and I held Draco's elbow as we headed off to the Infirmary Wing, because I knew Draco wasn't seeing entirely clearly, no matter what he said.  He'd stopped his nose from bleeding and stuffed the handkerchief into one of his pockets, but there were still faint smears of blood on his face and crusting the rims of his nostrils.  His swollen cheek was on the opposite side of his face, where I couldn't see it, but I still knew it was there.  I scowled fiercely.

"Stop scowling, Potter.  And stop staring at me.  I'll be fine when I get to a sink and wash my face."  He didn't even have to look at me to know I was scowling.  I scowled harder.

"Actually, all things considered, I think it went quite well.  And I must say, I'm impressed.  I wasn't aware that you knew how to talk like an overbred parlour-ponce."  I stared at him unbelievingly, but his stride and posture never faltered, and I was forced to believe that he'd _meant_ that.

"In what way exactly did it go quite well?!?"  I demanded hotly.  "Your father gets your letter, shows up in a rage, shouts at you, demands that you drop me like spoiled goat intestines, smacks you around some, then storms out promising more later?  You call that _going quite well_?!?  Are you sure he didn't hit you harder than you think?"

Draco snorted.  "When I sent the letter to my father, I also sent one to my mother.  Whatever the world may think, the true head of my family—the power behind the throne, you might say—is my mother.  My father will go home, rant and throw things and shout until my mother grows weary of hearing things smash and comes down to his study to talk to him.  She'll point out the positive aspects of having a connection to the best-known Light wizard in centuries, the fact that we're both still young, nothing is officially permanent between us, there's still years for me to father an heir, and that porcelain is extremely valuable so don't you even THINK about picking it up, Lucius."  Draco grinned lopsidedly.  "And that will be that.  He'll calm down, and after a while she'll even convince him it was his idea to exploit the publicity, when it becomes public, and really, who else was famous and rich enough to be with me?  And anyway, it's necessary for a boy becoming a man to challenge his father and establish his own will.  And then, once she's left, he'll realise that if somehow Voldemort _does_ really come into power again and appears to be winning, he can play the whole thing off to be an intentional infiltration into your defences.  He'll decide it was the best thing that could have possibly happened.  It'll work out fine, Harry."

I stopped to think about that for a few minutes.  "Er."   I scrubbed my free hand over my face tiredly.  "But, but I don't _want_ you to betray me to Voldemort."

"I won't, silly Potter.  But he'll think that maybe someday I might, because in the end he'll decide that my defiance was really only that I'd had this brilliant idea and couldn't let him deny himself such a potential advantage."

"But."

Draco looked over at me, displaying the swelling cheekbone pressing that eye into a squint, then laughed merrily before clumsily pulling me into a kiss.  "Of course it's not going to HAPPEN, Harry, I'm just telling you how my father's going to rationalise this to himself.  Of _course_ I'm not going to do any of that.  Not _ever._  I'm just explaining how he'll delude himself."

"Oh.  Well, that's alright then, I suppose."  I was nicely reassured.  "But, what if he doesn't think all that, and he disowns you?"  

"My mother's quite the wealthy heiress in her own right, and she retained all the rights to her fortune when she married my father.  I'll still be bloody rich, fear not."  Draco flicked an amused glance at me.  "Why, planning to have me as your sugar daddy?"

Despite myself I snickered.  "I have my _own_ fortune, thank you.  I don't need a sugar daddy to keep me.  I can keep myself.  …I was really just wondering what you would do without—without your father."

Draco's smile turned thin around the edges.  "I'd make do.  He'd come 'round eventually.  And anyway, I'd still have my mother."

There was hidden pain and more there.  But I chose not to say anything else until we got to the Infirmary Wing.


	17. chapter seventeen

The next morning Draco was gone.

He wasn't dead.  That much I could tell.  But he was gone, and the only thing left in the echoing part of my head that belonged to him was the faint feel of him and a vague sense of which direction he'd gone.  

I went straight to Dumbledore.

*  *  *

"So young Malfoy is gone, you say."

"Yes, sir.  He's missing."

"It's true that he has not appeared for classes today, and that his Housemates have not seen him since yesterday evening.  But what exactly makes you so certain that he isn't on the Hogwarts grounds somewhere?"

I'd forgotten this bit in my fear, that I couldn't just say how I knew that Draco was gone.  I desperately tried to improvise.  "I've looked everywhere for him, Professor.  I've asked everyone.  No one's seen him, and I can't find him, and his father was _very_ angry with him yesterday…I'm afraid his father has taken him from Hogwarts."

Dumbledore looked at me steadily.  "It is within his rights to do so, Harry," he said gently.

"But—sir, I'm afraid he means to do him harm.  And Draco would have told me if he'd gone willingly, I _know_ he would have."  I stared down at my hands, clenched white-knuckled in my lap.  "He's in trouble, I'm sure of it."

"Harry, I understand your concern.  Unfortunately there is simply nothing that can be done unless Draco is actually harmed, and we have proof of it."  I swallowed hard, my vision greying out at the edges.  Professor Dumbledore continued.  "Have you owled him, Harry?"

"I—no—" 

"Perhaps you should try that, before you allow yourself to become truly concerned.  It is entirely possible that he is fine, you know."

"Professor—Lucius _beat_ him yesterday—it only stopped because I came in and made him go—"

Dumbledore leaned forward over his desk, looking at me intently until finally I raised my head and met his gaze.  "Lucius Malfoy has not survived this long by being foolish, Harry.  He will not harm his son, his only heir.  Of all the things he might do, that is not one of them."

_―but he already HAS—_

"But if he does—"

"If he does, we will retrieve Draco.  But he will not.  And as things stand, there is simply nothing that can be done.  I apologise, Harry.  I know that you care for Draco very much.  But we cannot do anything at this point."

I squeezed my eyes shut tightly for a moment, then nodded and stood up.  "I've got to get back to class, Professor."  And I was out the door before Dumbledore could do more than nod.

Dumbledore wouldn't help me.  There had to be someone who would.

*  *  *

I went to Ron and Hermione next.

"Draco's missing.  I need you to help me figure out how to get him back."  ...I'd never really believed in dancing around a subject anyway.

While Ron was still blinking, Hermione answered, knife-sharp as always.  "How do you know he's gone?"

Dammit, sometimes I get tired of Hermione being so fucking bright.

"Because I've looked everywhere for him and he's not _here_, alright, he's not fucking _here_—" 

"Harry!  Language!" 

"—and his father is going to _hurt_ him and I've got to _stop _it, don't you see?"

Hermione put a hand on my arm and I glared at her, completely NOT in the mood to deal with her trying to settle me down.  "Harry.  Settle down."

"God damn it, Hermione, I fucking _knew_ you'd say that."  Ron snickered.

"Harry!"

"For Christ's sake, are you going to help me or just bitch at me about my language!?!"  I shouted.

Hermione stared at me, shocked.  I began to feel very, very bad for talking to her like that, and prayed she didn't cry.  I couldn't bear that just now.

Fortunately Ron stepped in and saved me.  "So Malfoy's gone.  Is he in danger, do you think, Harry?"

"I _know_ he's in danger.  His father was here yesterday and _beat_ him for being with me.  And he left only because I made him, and he threatened Draco, and something is just fucking _wrong_, and I'm afraid for him, yes!"

Hermione had gotten past staring and asked, "Have you owled him?"  For the love of God, I hate it when everyone asks me the same questions all reasonable-like.

"No.  There's no _time_ to owl him, he's in _danger_!  You don't understand, you didn't see his father yesterday, he almost broke Draco's jaw and he was about to cast _Crucio_ on him when I came in—"

"Alright.  Where is he?  Have you talked to Dumbledore?"

I scowled at my feet, disgusted.  "Yes.  He won't help."

This took even Ron aback.  If _Dumbledore_ wouldn't help—

Very gently, Hermione asked, "Do you have any idea where Draco is, Harry?"

I was about to shout '_Yes, he's over THERE, that way, let's go!_' when I realised how incredibly stupid that would be.  "I…I think Lucius took him back to Malfoy Manor."  It was the most likely place.  As long as I could just get off the grounds, if it felt like I was going the wrong way, I could think of something else—I just had to get started—

"Do you have any idea where Malfoy Manor is?  Or how to get there?  We can't Apparate, I don't know anything about whether the train goes there or what the schedule is—"  Hermione had put her hand on my arm again.

I stopped, crushed.  I'd not thought of _how_ to get to him.  Just _getting_ to him was what mattered.  "We could _fly_…"

"Ron and I don't have broomsticks, Harry."  Hermione was being very, very careful with me now.  I could feel it, and for a split second it made me want to scream at her and storm off, but then my brain kicked in and I realised that I was making a complete ass of myself.

And all of a sudden my legs couldn't hold me up and I crumpled to the floor with my head in my hands, trying very hard indeed not to cry.  Hermione and Ron had their arms around me instantly.  "I'm _afraid _for him and there's nothing I can _do…_"

"I know, Harry, I know."  Hermione's cheek felt suspiciously wet against mine, and I didn't care whatsoever that I was on the floor in the middle of the corridor, all I cared about was that somewhere, somewhere Draco _needed_ me and I couldn't be there.

It was just then that _DRACO_ burst into my mind like a volcano erupting.

I leapt to my feet, sending Hermione sprawling, and Ron sat back hard and gaped at me;  I knew, intellectually I _knew_ that I was making a very large mistake, but I couldn't help myself;  and I _ran_.

He was just below the Hogwarts gates and closing in fast.  I pelted towards him, drawn to him more strongly than a compass needle pulls north, a mindless frenzy of relief/fear/love/fear/love/fury/love humming in my ears and burning along my skin.  

_Soon_ I would see him _soon_ and he was _alive_ and my pounding feet met the rhythm of my heart and _soon_ he was _okay_ and if I just ran _hard_ enough he would be _there_

and he was.

There.

I flung myself at him so hard that he was knocked entirely off his feet and in a tangle of limbs we fell and I buried my face in his throat and tried to remember how to breathe.

Then I sat up and started examining every inch of his skin, shoving his robes off, checking his limbs, pushing his shirt up and searching every bit of that silken creamy skin that belonged to ME.  _:Where have you BEEN you scared the HELL out of me are you okay?  Tell me you're okay tell me you're alright where the fuck have you BEEN?:  _

He was about to answer when I found it.

No bruises, no broken bones.

Just a burn.

A deep gouge of tortured flesh, a blistered, bleeding, blackened-on-the-edges burn running from the base of his throat down jaggedly over his heart to his last rib, just missing his nipple by a breath.  My breath caught in my throat and between one blink and another my vision was blood-red.

Through grinding teeth I managed to ask him.  "Who did this to you."

He seized my face between his hands and made me look at him.  When my eyes met his he flinched and blanched snow-white.  _:Harry, you don't understand, it was completely unpredictable, oh god Harry don't look at me like that please.:_

_:I'll kill him. I'LL KILL HIM.  It was him, wasn't it.  Let me go, Draco, LET ME GO.:  _But he wouldn't;  he wrapped his legs around my waist and his arms around mine and clung like a limpet.  Even through my blood-rage I stopped, terrified that I'd hurt him more, afraid to have him pressing up against me with that ripping wound still _bleeding_ down his lovely pale chest.  But what wasn't held down of me was my mind tearing his father limb from limb.

_:NO Harry listen to me it wasn't him, it wasn't!:_

I stopped, froze entirely, blind to everything except his pain and the red haze that had flared over my eyes and mind, and held so still that I could feel _exactly _ when the vein burst in my mouth from my jaw clenching and flooded my tongue with blood.

_:Tell me what happened.:_

:It was—I—Voldemort came, Harry.:  He clenched his limbs tighter around me to hold me down, but all I could do was drop my jaw, blood still running along my gums and over my tongue, and try to keep him from pressing too tightly against me, to spare him.  He went on.  _:My father came and got me early this morning and took me home and everything was just like I'd told you it would be, everything was okay, he wound down and had accepted  it and he'd just called for Mother when Voldemort Apparated in.:_

:Oh my god, Draco.:

A tiny part of my mind registered the blood seeping out to feather over my tightly-pressed lips.  I swallowed thickly.

_:He'd listened to us shouting through the door of my father's study and just when things were done and we'd finished and Father'd sent a house elf for Mother he came in and oh GODS Harry.:_

:Tell me.:

:He was GLAD, Harry, he was PLEASED, but just to reinforce his dominance just because he COULD he hurt my father, he HURT MY FATHER, I saw him and when I realised what he was going to do I stepped forward and he just looked over and flicked his wand and I slammed back against the wall and I couldn't move and all I could do was watch and I saw my father looking at me before he screamed and oh my GOD Harry—:

:Oh my god.:

:—and my father screamed and SCREAMED and I couldn't do ANYTHING and then it was better because he let my father go and just held him there like he did to me and he came over to me and he said, he said—:

:Oh god, Draco—:

:—he said 'Well done, young Malfoy' just like Snape did he said it and then my mother came in and saw and turned around and left, thank all the gods, she LEFT, and then he told me to remember my loyalties, remember them and remember what was waiting for me if I faltered, and my father cried as he saw it it was his VOLDEMORT'S it was his it was his wand it burned white-hot at the tip his eyes were glowing burning red and he liked it he LOVED it I saw him smiling while he did it so twisted and almost sexual and so WRONG it made me afraid so afraid Harry I saw him smiling and it wasn't just a burn it wasn't it felt like it was tearing out my soul and I SCREAMED but it didn't stop it didn't it sliced like a knife and only burned around the edges it wouldn't even cauterise it just carved into me while I bled and my skin smoked I breathed my own flesh burning in a cloud around my head while I screamed and my father CRIED and he dragged it down so SLOWLY so SLOWLY Harry—:

 :Oh my GOD Draco NO—:

:—my father CRIED, he CRIED, I've never seen him cry before but he CRIED—:

:Draco.  It's over now, it's OVER, you're here now, it's over—:

:—and then he left, he just stopped out of nowhere like none of it had happened and he smiled at me and he smiled at my father and watched as my father slid down the wall and he just LEFT like it was all unimportant, and my father cried while he watched me bleed and oh GODS Harry he CRIED—:

I held him in my arms and rocked back and forth, tears streaming from my eyes and hate blazing in my heart.

_:—and then my mother came back with her wand and all the hells that might ever have been in her eyes if she'd been there she'd have killed him or died but it was too late, it was too late—:_

:Oh Draco.  Shhhhhhhhh.  It's okay now.  It will be okay now.  I swear to you, on my life, I will make things alright now.  Shhhhhhhhhhhh.:

And he shuddered and cried into my shoulder while I bit the insides of my lips bloody, my lips already lined with my own drying blood, and my tears stained his colourless hair. 

Whatever it might take, whatever I had to give, I would rectify this.  I would fix Draco's world if it killed me. I would make everything right again. 


	18. chapter eighteen

Hermione and Ron didn't find us until we'd both calmed.  

It had thankfully taken a bit for them to get up, and then for Ron to convince himself that Hermione was alright.  Then they had pelted after me.  By the time they found us Draco had collapsed into a graceless tangle of long legs and robes, arms wrapped around me, sobbing into the crook of my neck like the world had ended.

Perhaps it had.

When I looked up at Hermione, an infinitesimal part of me ashamed for knocking her away but mostly engrossed in what I felt _just now,_ my heart breaking and my eyes full of rage and tears, she took an instant step back before stumbling forward and wrapping her arms around both of us.  It wasn't until much later that I realised I'd frightened her.

Ron held back for a moment, shocked and aghast at the heap of Hermione/me/Draco all crying, before he shook his head helplessly and put his arms around all of us.  His hair mingled with mine and Hermione's and Draco's, from above a swirl of colour and pain and sympathy.

It was then that Dumbledore strode swiftly into the courtyard.

Ron looked up at him, freckled face suffused with pain and fury. 

"Get Madam Pomfrey.  Now.  Please, sir."

*  *  *

It wouldn't stop bleeding.

Madam Pomfrey had healed the burn, closed the flesh and smoothed it to apparent perfection, except that the skin was still blackened and though there was no wound to be seen whatsoever Draco's flesh still oozed clear fluid and blood.  

Finally Pomfrey poured a sleeping draught down Draco's throat and headed for her reference books.  Hermione and Ron pulled me away once even I could be convinced that Draco was sleeping deeply.

Dumbledore had left to do gods-knew-what shortly after fetching Pomfrey.  I was glad.  I didn't want to talk to him just now anyway.

Hermione sat me down on a staircase and stood a few steps below me, arms crossed.  Ron sat just above and behind me.  I looked intently at the stone between my feet like I could melt into it if I just stared long enough.

It was Hermione who spoke.  "What haven't you told us, Harry?"

I said nothing. 

"Harry.  We're your best friends.  _What haven't you told us?_"

It was too late to lie.  Too late to pretend anymore.  I'd already given it away.

"The potion never faded, Hermione."

Ron caught his breath behind me, but when I glanced up, Hermione was nodding.  

"I told you it did because we didn't want you to go to anyone and have it stopped.  We didn't want it to stop.  We found we needed each other...needed not to be left alone.  So I lied."

"You thought that without being in each other's minds you'd be left alone?"  Hermione asked quietly.

I looked up and met her gaze.  "Thought?  No.  We _would_ have been.  More alone than we'd ever been before, even if we were in the same room, even if we were skin against skin, so _fucking_ alone.  We needed each other.  And the stronger it got, and the longer it went, the more we needed each other.  And after a while it wasn't just that we'd be so―"  ―my breath caught― "―so incredibly alone, it was that even the _thought_ of being without it made dying seem easy, and then I really _couldn't_ tell you because I'd already lied and then if it was taken away―and you hated me for lying to you―I'd have lost _everything―_I couldn't tell you―"

Hermione knelt on the steps in front of me just as Ron's hand clasped my shoulder.  "It's okay, Harry," he said.  Hermione nodded.

"...Are you going to tell Dumbledore now?"  I asked, hopelessly.

They both said no at the same time.

*  *  *

Pomfrey discovered how very stubborn I can be that night.  She asked me nicely to leave, and I politely declined;  she insisted firmly that I go, and I more firmly insisted on staying;  eventually she outright ordered me, and I outright refused.   Finally she gave in to the inevitable and left me with a detention and Gryffindor fifty points poorer.  I didn't care.  

It was sometime in the middle of the night when Draco woke, crying out.  I sat up with a start―I'd drifted off, sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed next to Draco's hip where I could watch his face―and seized his hand.  _:It's alright, love, you're safe!:_

He struggled under the sheets for a moment, frantic like a small bird held in the hand, his mind fearful and incoherent.  I stood up and tore the sheets away from him, freeing him.  For a fraction of a second he cringed away from me―and oh gods how that hurt―but then his eyes unclouded and he opened his arms to me, exposing his chest crusted with blood along the jagged line that was supposedly healed.  I sank down onto the bed and held him, kissing his forehead while he wept in my arms like a child.

When he quieted, I sat up on the edge of the bed and looked down at him.  He clenched my fingers in his fiercely.  My shirt was stained with tears and blood.  

"I'm going to kill him, Draco."  My voice echoed strangely in the dark Infirmary ward.

"I know you are.  And I'm going to help."  Draco's eyes lit with fury...that silver grey I so loved no longer reflective but glowing from within, almost red in the dimmed light.  "No one does that to my family and lives.  I'll tear his eyes out with my bare hands."  

I shivered.  I didn't _like_ Draco like this.  "Wouldn't it be easier to just cast _Avada Kedavra_ on him, trap whatever might be left of him afterwards, and talk to Dumbledore about getting rid of him for good?"

"I wasn't talking about what would be _easy_, Harry."

"That's not quite what I meant―it's just that defeating him at all might be all we can do, arranging to have him held down and helpless so you can mutilate him could be more than we can handle―and I don't like the thought of you doing something like that."

"Don't misunderstand me, Harry.  I love you very, very much.  But I intend to avenge what he did to my father, no matter what gets in my way."

"What he did to your _father_!  What about what he did to _you_?!?"  I was shocked.

Draco dismissed that with a wave of his hand.  "Whatever.  Pomfrey will fix it, someone will fix it eventually.  But he hurt my father, he disgraced him and hurt him and made him _cry_, Harry,  he humiliated him and _hurt _him and I _will not_ tolerate that.  Voldemort will _pay_ for that."

Now I was growing angry.  "You don't care at all what he did to _you_?  What about what he's done to _me_ by touching you!?  What makes you think that your own pain is so fucking _worthless_, Draco?  What makes you think that _you're _not worth avenging?  What the hell is wrong with you?"  I stopped, speechless, unable to do anything more than clench my fists into the blankets and shake my head.  "One of these days, Draco, you'll realise what you really are."

"Harry, believe me.  I _know_ what I am.  I have no illusions about it."

"No, you _don't_.  You _don't_.  You have no fucking idea what your true value is."  I turned away, arms wrapped around my ribs and fingers biting into my upper arms.  I couldn't look at him anymore;  couldn't see his face with that white-lipped determination fouled by his disregard for himself.  

"I _will_ do this thing, Harry, whether you help me or not."  

I spun around and glared at him, fists clenched.  "My god, Draco, do you honestly think I'd let you go off and fight Voldemort alone?   You bloody fool.  You say you know me, what the fuck do you THINK I'm going to do?  Let you run off and die while I sit behind safe walls and pretend nothing's wrong?   You think I could wait on the sidelines while you ran into a situation that would probably kill you?  Sit back and do _nothing_?  I thought you _knew_ me, Draco." 

...He cringed back into his dune of pillows.   His arms were crossed on his chest, but his fingers dug livid grooves into his arms.  _:Don't argue with me, Harry.  Just...don't.:_  

His mind ordered.  In the shadows of his head, though, it was pleading with me.

I ground my teeth.  Nearly all of me wanted to break something.  The rest of me wanted to stop his mouth with mine.  My pride wouldn't let me do either.

:Shut up, Draco.  Please.:

_:If you wish.:_

_:Shut up and love me.:_

And finally he was silent and reached his arms out to me and this time when I wept my tears fell on the bloody reddened line that wavered drunkenly down the left side of his chest...and where they fell, the crusted blood melted away and the red flesh still weeping clear fluid faded to a healthy, pale pink...for a few minutes...

...but returned.  In the end, it returned.


	19. chapter nineteen

There was a kind of fury in our lovemaking.

His burn was still unhealed and weeping, and I was afraid to touch him until one day when Madam Pomfrey was off on an errand.  I was sitting on the end of his bed, and he sat up abruptly and literally leapt out of bed.  My mouth was open to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing when he slipped his tongue into it.

I was fearful for his wound, his pain, but he pressed himself fiercely against me and moved his hands and mouth with such fervour that I quite honestly could not refuse him.  It was nearly painful, the sensation of his mouth sucking down my neck, his arousal burning against me through his pyjamas, his pain scraping against my mind.

He hurt and I hurt with him but desire burned fiercer than anything in his mind or mine....I was hesitant, afraid to hurt him more, but he pinned me down and flicked his tongue against me while his hand crept under my shirt and toyed with the fastening of my pants...

And after a few moments his jaw-clenching passion overcame me and his pain became a titillating flare on the edge of both our awarenesses and all that really mattered was our mouths on each other.

...It was nearly far too soon when Madam Pomfrey returned.  She entered and found us both dishevelled and flushed, I tugging at my untucked shirt and Draco pulling the sheets up to his shoulders.

"I shan't ask what you were up to," she said icily.  "I gather it was entirely inappropriate for an infirmary, let alone a patient who is in _no condition_ for any kind of strenuous activity, and I expect that you shan't do it again."  And she swept off, nose in the air.  Draco and I smirked sideways at each other.

*  *  *

"Wake up!  Wake up, Harry!  We've got to go to the library."

I blinked, lifted my head up from my folded arms.  I'd fallen asleep on the stairway outside the Infirmary―again.   "What?"

Through my sleep-blurred eyes Hermione scowled at me.  "The library.  We have to go there.  To look for a way to heal him.  Unless you know what to do already."

There was no need to ask who 'he' was.  I leaped up to my feet―still dizzy and dazed―and tipped sideways;  I seized hold of Ron's arm, held out and ready for me.  Swaying, I frowned at Hermione.  "If I knew what could heal him, I'd have _done_ it already."

"That's my point."  And she stomped swiftly away.  Ron helped me stagger down the hallway after her.   

*  *  *

We read for _days._

We started with books on healing, with no results;  finally I pointed out that as the school nurse Madam Pomfrey'd probably already _read_ all of them, and if the answer was in them, she'd have found it by now.  So we switched to books on curses and hexes.  

Naturally, Hermione was the one to point out that nothing that could do what had been done to Draco would be in a book available to the general student body.  

"Wait.  Stop!" she said abruptly, interrupting Ron and I (who were skimming through the stacks of books she'd assigned us obediently).

"What?" Ron and I said in unison.  I  shoved a bookmark into the huge tome I was skimming through and looked at Hermione expectantly.

"It won't be here."

"What won't be here?" 

"It―the cure―we won't find it here―we won't find anything out here in the general library!  If _Voldemort _cast the original spell, there's no way it would be something we could find in the library...anything he would cast would _have _to be Dark magic, something out of the Restricted section.  And if we can find the spell that caused it...we're a lot closer to finding the cure!  And that means we're looking in the _wrong place_!"

I stared at Hermione.  "You're brilliant, you know."

She blushed.  "It's just *logic*, Harry."

Ron looked at her appreciatively.  "I'll take your logic over anyone's guess ANY day of the week, Hermione.  And I hate you for making me read all this for no reason.  And I hate that we're doing this for _Malfoy_."

Hermione and I both scowled at him.  

"Reading, and hopefully _learning, _is neverwasted, Ron―"

"Stop calling him Malfoy like that―"

Ron slammed his book shut with an incredibly loud *WHUMP*.   "Do you two want to find the cure, or not?" 

Hermione and I shut up.

*  *  *

Getting into the Restricted Section was far easier than I'd expected.

The three of us discussed various plans, but couldn't come up with something that would allow more than one of us in.   Hermione could certainly convince a teacher to write her a note, but Ron and I hadn't the scholarly reputation.  I might be able to wheedle Lupin or McGonagall into giving me a note, but I'd have to give good reasons for the request, and I knew that if I simply explained that we were looking for a cure for Draco's lingering―wound―it wouldn't be an acceptable reason;  whomever I approached would simply tell me that Madam Pomfrey was sure to fix it very soon, and we shouldn't concern ourselves with it. 

So we just walked in.

Madam Pince glared at us, and Ron later said he heard her muttering something, but I heard not a damned thing as we strode straight into the Restricted Section and started yanking books off of the shelves.  Not that I would have cared particularly if I HAD heard something.   

Yet more reading, reading, reading...I'm not ashamed to admit I found some things that made me slightly queasy, and Ron blanched pale enough that even his freckles faded out at one point.  Dark magic's an ugly, ugly thing.  Hermione, though, never flinched at anything she read―and naturally she read faster than either Ron or I, launching herself into book after book after book.   She's a wonder, honestly.

But in the end, it was Ron that found it.   We'd given up on it for the evening, and Ron was idly flicking through a book on crafts someone had left in the common room while Hermione studied and I stared glumly into the fire.

"Hermione!  This, look at this!  The 'Spell of Incendiary Art'!  Says it does exactly what happened...the tip of the wand burns white-hot, then it's supposed to be used as a wood-burning tool..."

Hermione snatched the book out of Ron's hands, then I snatched it out of hers, and for a moment it looked like there might be a quarrel until Ron took it back from both of us and laid it out on the table so everyone could see.

'Use the Wande as a Toole and Trace It along the Patterne ye wish to Burne.  The Tip of the Wande shalle turn White with Fire and ye shalle Draw it along the Lines of the Design.  It shalle Burne the Way Through the Woode ye Choose for Your Arte.'

I looked at Hermione;  she looked at Ron.  "That sounds perfectly accurate...except _how are we supposed to counteract it?_"

Ron hung his head.  "I don't know, this is all I found, honestly..."

"Oh bugger me."

"It seems you've gotten a bit of that lately―"

"Ron!!"

"Will you _shut up_?"

"I was just _joking_―"

"Ron that is _not funny_―"

"OKAY!"  I shouted.  "_SHUT UP_."

They both closed their mouths and looked shamefaced.  I turned the page.

'In Case of Accidental Burns, Apply a Poultice of the following Ingredients:  2 handfuls dried Yarrow, 3 handfuls dried Tansy, 1 cup Spring Water, and 3 Powdered Ice Drake Scales.  This same Poultice can be Applied to Mistakes in Your Worke to Remove the Error.  Leave the Poultice on the Burn or Erring Parte for 3 Hours or Until it Begins to Flake Off of Its own.'

I looked up.  "Well, that sounds easy enough.  Where can we get the scales?"

"They should have them in Hogsmeade...Do you really think this will work, Harry?"

"I don't see why not..."  I tried to sound self-assured.  "After all, it _does_ sound exactly like what happened, it's worth a shot, I say.  I'm going to Hogsmeade.  Are you two coming?" 

"Er, Harry, Hogsmeade shops are _closed_ now."

Oops.

"Then I'm going tomorrow morning, first thing.  Are you coming or not?"   I ground my teeth.

"...Of course, you idiot."  Ron slapped my back in a manly fashion just as Hermione flung her arms around my neck and hugged me until I couldn't breathe.

Honestly, those two drive me crazy sometimes.


	20. chapter twenty

Harry and Draco went after Voldemort and beat the everliving shit out of him. Narcissa hugged Draco, who blushed and squirmed, kissed Harry, who enjoyed it, and Lucius scowled and sulked. 

As for Voldemort? He gave up being evil in Britain and decided to go drink maitais in Hawaii instead, possibly being evil to the tourists. When he was hungover he poked at crabs and beached jellyfish with his wand, occasionally using Unforgivable curses on them, just for kicks.

Harry and Draco made mad love, and lived together happily ever after. The end.'


End file.
